In a back-and-forth game that wasn’t decided until Joe Girard III made a pair of foul shots with eight-tenths of a second left in the second overtime, Syracuse emerged with a 112-110 home victory over Indiana in the ACC-Big Ten Classic. The Orange (4-3) led by as many as 18 points and held an 11-point lead in the final four minutes of regulation, then came back after giving up the first four points of the second overtime to the Hoosiers (5-1) to pull out the win.
Indiana forced the first overtime by getting three free throws in the final second of regulation, as the intentional miss by Khristian Lander was rebounded and turned into two foul shots by Trayce Jackson-Davis to send the game into overtime knotted at 88 a side.
Neither team held much of an advantage in the first overtime, but SU got six free throws and a Buddy Boeheim jumper to flip a four-point deficit into a four-point lead in the second extra session. Indiana’s Miller Kopp would wipe out a 110-107 Syracuse lead with three foul shots, but Girard was fouled on a drive and made two free throws for the winning points.
The brothers Boeheim propelled the Orange to a 10-2 lead in just over two minutes of play as the hosts led almost all of the opening half. The Hoosiers went without a field goal for over five minutes of play ad SU ran off ten straight points for a 32-18 lead with 6:30 left in the opening session.
Syracuse built their lead out to 18 points on three occasions, but Indiana used a 21-5 run to erase almost all of the margin in under eight minutes of second half play and eventually took a 63-60 lead midway through the half. The Orange would later run off 18 of 23 points for an 83-72 lead with under four minutes left in regulation, but gave up a 13-3 run to let the guests back in the game.
While SU pulled out the win, they leave the game with just as many questions about their defense as before the contest. Indiana shot over 55 percent overall and 40.7 percent from three-point range, including shooting 74.1 percent from the field in the second half and 6-of-9 from beyond the arc.
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The Syracuse defense did force 26 turnovers on 93 Hoosier possessions, including making 18 steals. The Orange offense performed well, making 49.3 percent of their shots, including 13 three-pointers.
Buddy Boeheim paced SU with 27 points, eight assists, and five steals while his brother Jimmy made four three-pointers as part of his 26-point effort. Girard made 5-of-6 triples for the bulk of his 22 points while Jesse Edwards had a perfect shooting night, making all seven field goal attempts and three free throws as part of a 17-point effort to go with three blocks and five steals.
Jackson-Davis was a force for Indiana, piling up game highs of 31 points and 16 rebounds. Miller Kopp poured in 28 points while Parker Stewart made a half dozen treys as he added 20 points for the Hoosiers. Race Thompson had 17 points, a dozen boards, and eight assists for the IU attack.
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