ST. LOUIS — Charles Cooke faced the cameras with his eyes reddened having wiped away tears. Scoochie Smith sat in the back of the locker room, not talking to anyone or looking at anything. The Dayton student managers tore down signs plastered along the walls featuring Syracuse scouting reports.

Dayton was the favored team. The one with 25 wins on the season and a win over the Orange in the NCAA Tournament just two years before. But with one monstrous SU run to start the second half, its season came to an end.

“It’s a blessing to be here. There are a lot of teams that aren’t here that wish they were,” Smith said. “We just didn’t play the way we wanted to play today.”

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The Flyers (25-8, 14-4 Atlantic 10) scored just four points in the first 13 minutes of the second half. By then, a two-point halftime lead for Syracuse (20-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) had extended to 22. A chance for the Flyers to continue its season ended with a 70-51 loss to Syracuse at the Scottrade Center on Friday afternoon.

Both teams had early offensive struggles. The Orange started 1-of-9 from the field. Dayton was 3-of-10. But during the 17-4 run to start the second half, frustration and missed shots mounted only for the Flyers.

“We have to take our defense and turn it into our offense,” Dyshawn Pierre said of his final college game. “And we couldn’t get some stops and push in transition.”

Sam Blum | Senior Staff Writer

Michael Gbinije had the first dagger 3 to put Syracuse up 10 off a pass from Trevor Cooney. Then it was Cooney that pumped his fist after hitting a long fadeaway 3 on the next possession. Thirty-five seconds later it was Malachi Richardson hitting his third and final long-range jumper of the afternoon. It was 45-31 and Syracuse’s lead was never closer than 12.

One of the best defensive teams in the country couldn’t get a stop. One of the best defensive rebounding teams in the country let the Orange get 16 second-chance points.

“We tried to hang in there the best we could,” UD head coach Archie Miller said. “We just didn’t have enough juice on offense. We need to make some shots against that zone. Their zone is their zone. They didn’t do anything different today than they ever do.”

The Flyers made a small run. Having scored six straight points to make the deficit just 17, Cooke stole a sloppy pass from Gbinije and had a fairly open lane to a layup. He missed it, and had to race back on defense as the Orange offense milked every second of the clock.

That was the last good chance the Flyers would have. And every chance of a physical, hard fought game that it was supposed to be turned into a blowout. Miller pointed to two dunks, two breakaway layups, three 3-pointers. Four missed free-throws to start the second half. All were missed chances for Dayton.

The difference between that physical battle, and the blowout it became.

“It is what it is,” Steve McElvene said.

Published on March 18, 2016 at 4:03 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3