Men’s Basketball Rolls in Final Exhibition, Defeats Le Moyne 97-64

By Nick Dugan SYRACUSE, NY — For the second straight year, Le Moyne visited the Carrier Dome and for the second straight year, the Orange came away with a victory. The new-look Orange defeated the Dolphins 97-64 in their final exhibition contest on Tuesday night.

Despite the large number of returning talent, it was the newcomers that shone in a game in which Syracuse never trailed. Graduate transfer Andrew White scored a game-high 24 points, in addition to a pair of steals. After the game, inspired by Stephen Curry’s record breaking performance a few nights ago, White stressed his mentality as a key to his shooting success.

“It’s all mindset. And the coaches keep telling me ‘Do more, do more.’ … they want to see me score more. I know a lot of the scoring load will be on me, so I’ve got to have a good mindset if I’m going to deliver for my team the way that they need me to.”

Another graduate transfer John Gillon also played extremely well in his limited minutes. He totaled 14 points in as many minutes, scoring nine of those in a span of less than 90 seconds of play.

“I just wanted to attack the basket,” he said. “I didn’t feel like any of the defenders on that team could stay in front of me and stop me from making a play, at least. They were telling me to be more aggressive, so that’s what I did.”

Head Coach Jim Boeheim, despite his reserved demeanor, was pleased by his team’s performance on offense across the board. On the other side of the ball, the Orange did not play a man-to-man defense as they did against Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but did use the full-court press quite often and with moderate success. The defense, however, he feels still needs some fine-tuning.

“We need to learn a lot. We’ve got a lot of work to do. When you lose your three best perimeter players, it’s just a whole different team from that point of view”

The next time Syracuse takes the floor on November 11, they will face in-state rival Colgate at 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome. The game will mark the official beginning of the Orange’s bid to reach a second-straight Final Four. But for experienced, fifth-year senior Andrew White, the focus is just a bit more near-sighted.

“The theme is where will Syracuse end? Is it the Final Four and so on, and so on. But, it starts on Friday. You have to take it one step at a time.”