It’s panic time for Syracuse.
The Orange will enter the NCAA tournament on a two-game losing streak following today’s 91-84 Big East quarterfinal loss to Georgetown. But the bigger loss for Syracuse at Madison Square Garden came with an injury to center Arinze Onauku.
One half of Syracuse’s twin towers, along with Rick Jackson, went down with 5 minutes remaining in the second half after hurting his right knee. Onauku was on the ground in pain for several minutes before being helped off the court by trainers for what the team called a strain but looked much worse.
Before Onauku went down, Syracuse offered little resistance defensively against a persistent Georgetown team, which advanced to the semifinals and a matchup against the winner of the Villanova-Marquette game.
“Georgetown attacks zones very well,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “Teams in our league at this stage of the year know how to attack us. We’re looking forward to get out and play somebody that hasn’t seen us.”
That will be the case when Syracuse opens the NCAA tournament next Thursday or Friday. Their spot as a No. 1 seed should be safe despite losing to Louisville in their regular-season finale and again today.
“Georgetown is a great team,” senior guard Andy Rautins, who had 14 points, said. “(We’re) just going to have to pick our heads up and move forward from here.”
The Hoyas were led by junior point guard Chris Wright, who had 27 points, six rebounds and six assists. Syracuse shot 59 percent in the first half and 54 percent from behind the arc, and their lead was 40-37 at the break.
Syracuse stretched that advantage to 57-48 at the 13:43 mark on a Rautins 3-pointer, but the Orange cooled after that and Georgetown took advantage.
Wright and sophomore guard Jason Clark were the only scorers in a 13-0 Georgetown run that turned a 59-51 deficit into a five-point advantage.
“Well, myself and Jason we just wanted to try to be aggressive on the zone and try to get to the … force the issue and try to get to the middle of the paint, and we’d get wide open shots,” Wright said. “As you see when we got the ball in the middle, Jason hit a couple of 3s and Austin (Freeman) hit a couple of layups and Greg (Monroe) was very effective in the high post.”
Freeman and Monroe helped ice the game for Georgetown down the stretch to hold off Syracuse rallies.
Monroe followed a miss and completed the 3-point play to make it 84-76 Georgetown with 1:42 left. But back-to-back turnovers and pair of missed free throws by Monroe allowed Syracuse to get back within 85-81. But Scoop Jardine missed a layup at the other end and Monroe made both free throws on his next trip to the line.