ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Say this for Georgia Tech, the Yellow Jackets had a better shot at beating No. 9 Syracuse than they did Kennesaw State. And for that, it’s a step in the right direction.
Tech led for all but 10 seconds of the first half before succumbing to the Orange 80-76 in the final of the Legends Classic at Boardwalk Hall.
Brian Oliver made it interesting all by himself, scoring a career-high 32 points in 36 minutes near his hometown of Glassboro, N.J., with his eyes wide against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone. He made six 3-pointers, using his fifth to surpass his previous high of 21 points, 29 seconds into the second half.
But Syracuse held him to six points in the final 14 minutes to take control of the game.
“It’s tough to leave everything out there on the floor, and then you don’t get the result that you want,” Oliver said. “It’s nice for me to have a great game here, but it’s not the ending that I wanted. Yeah, I scored a lot, but it’s for nothing. We didn’t get the win.”
Coming off his first career double-double in a win over Texas-El Paso on Friday night (15 points, 12 rebounds), Oliver didn’t see many shots he wanted to pass up. He took 21 in the game, while the rest of the Jackets took 42.
But when his shots stopped falling, Tech (4-2) had no answer on offense, and Syracuse poured in easy baskets. The Orange (6-0) held Tech scoreless for 7:13 minutes in the second half while mounting a 16-0 run, including the first eight points by dunk or layup.
When Scoop Jardine made a jumper with 10:37 left, Syracuse was up 57-49.
“We started settling for deep jump shots, instead of trying to get the ball into the paint and play inside-out,” Tech coach Paul Hewitt said. “Obviously Brian made some bombs out there, but I thought in the first half we did a nice job of moving the ball; we did exploit those gaps in the zone. Might have panicked a little bit.”
Syracuse had five players in double figures and shot 55.6 percent from the floor.
Iman Shumpert, Tech’s leading scorer with a 14.8 average coming in, didn’t take his first shot until four minutes into the second half and didn’t score his first basket until 6:57 remained in the game. He finished with 11 points, including seven points in the final four minutes to put a late scare into Syracuse.
Glen Rice Jr. wasn’t much of a factor either, with seven points, after scoring a career-high 19 points Friday night. Both he and Oliver picked up their third fouls in a seven-second span early in the second half. Oliver eventually fouled out with eight seconds left.
“We were just trying to guard him,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said of late adjustment to Oliver. “We weren’t worrying about too many other guys on their team.”
Syracuse is bigger then Tech across the front line, with three starters of 6-foot-7 or taller, and took advantage down the stretch. Forward Kris Joseph scored 17 of his team-high 19 points in the second half. Rick Jackson got the emphatic play with a dunk to complete an alley-oop and give Syracuse a 74-67 with 1:58 left.
“They just decided to enforce their physical will on us, and we didn’t match it,” Hewitt said. “We didn’t match it at all.”
Tech led from the first shot Oliver put up 16 seconds into the game until C.J. Fair made a 3-pointer with 10.2 seconds left to go in the first half.
The Jackets led by as many as nine points in the first half, and that was without Shumpert taking a shot from the floor or free-throw line. Two early fouls didn’t help as Shumpert played only nine minutes in the first half.
But the Orange kept pounding inside and regained control with a 12-3 run in the final 4:50 of the first half.
Oliver scored 18 points in the first half while the rest of the Jackets combined for 18 points. He made four of seven 3-pointers in the first half to help Tech hit an eye-popping 56 percent from the floor overall.
“[Oliver] moved around,” Boeheim said. “They were really smart; he was in a lot of different places. He made some very difficult shots.”
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