Syracuse basketball loses to Duke 69-65 (Sweet 16): Brent Axe recap

By Brent Axe

The Syracuse University men's basketball team, playing with house money during a 2018 NCAA Tournament they barely qualified for, finally pushed away from the table in losing to Duke on Friday night in Omaha by a score of 69-65.

Thus ended the "embrace the grind" tour of 2017-18 for the Orange. A team who only had seven scholarship players and barely even had that with Tyus Battle, Frank Howard and Oshae Brissett logging major minutes, Paschal Chukwu and Bourama Sidibe playing with weak knees and Marek Dolezaj learning how to play in the ACC as a skinny 180-pound Slovakian import.

The fact that Syracuse even got to play Duke in the Sweet 16 is one that should be cherished by the Orange faithful after a season of twists, turns, departures, injuries and another harrowing ride on the NCAA Tournament bubble. 

"These guys deserve and awful lot of credit," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "I’m really proud of these guys. They’ve done just about everything you could hope for. It’s been all year. Seven guys all year. This hasn’t been just a few games. It’s been all year. They deserve an unbelievable amount of credit.

"I've never been anymore proud of a team for what they have done in these last 10 days,"  Boeheim said. "To go into that first game and be able to get that and then to beat TCU and Michigan State. These guys have a tremendous amount of courage. Nothing fazes them. Tonight things weren’t going our way for a long time but they just kept coming back. Duke is a great basketball team. They have as good of an offensive team as you are going to find. Tonight we were better offensively, just not good enough.”

"Right now it hurts," Syracuse guard Frank Howard said. "We made a late run. Fought through so much adversity through the year. We all understand what we did this year. We appreciate everyone on this team. Like Coach (Boeheim) said before, this year could have been bad with the adversity we hit and fought through. Guys played real hard. I’m proud of each and every one of these dudes. I’m proud of myself, proud of coach. I’m happy to be here.”

It wasn't always easy to watch this team with its offense ranked last in possessions per game and a style built on grit but it will be easier to smile when remembering the 2017-18 Orange after their incredible NCAA Tournament run. 

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