Final turnover of game lands Syracuse’s way in back-and-forth game at Louisville

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It truly was the perfect ending.

Judah Mintz, trying to run out the clock, but slipping and losing the ball. El Ellis racing upcourt, trying to win Louisville the game, but getting the ball poked away. Instead of a climactic finish to a back-and-forth affair, it was Benny Williams laying on his back with the ball and a Syracuse win.

They were the final two turnovers in a game that saw 36 between the two teams. And it was those final eight seconds that encapsulated everything about Syracuse’s (10-5, 3-1 Atlantic Coast) 70-69 win over Louisville (2-13, 0-4 ACC), where the Orange did just barely enough to win for the seventh time in eight games, but looked sluggish from start to finish against the Cardinals. SU’s 15 turnovers, its second-most in a game this season, displayed that, as did the season-high five that Joe Girard III committed. Still, Syracuse won, with Louisville turning it over 21 times.

Girard’s play and UL’s turnovers helped SU avoid a devastating upset loss, with the senior dropping in 28 points, including three that came from the top of the arc, putting the Orange up by two with 1:35 left. The fact that Syracuse needed clutch 3s late in the game was surprising and the turnovers were certainly a big part of that.

“We shouldn’t be in that position,” head coach Jim Boeheim said. “But we made some really bad turnovers to get down, and then we fight back, and then we made a couple bad turnovers.”

The Orange haven’t struggled much with turnovers this season outside of their blowout loss at Illinois when they recorded a season-high 17. There have been a series of 13-turnover outings, and games with 14 against Boston College and St. John’s. But entering the game, SU ranked 45th nationally in turnover percentage, per KenPom.

That ranking will slip, though, after Tuesday, where a mix of forced and unforced turnovers nearly doomed Syracuse on the road. A Girard kick-out pass that was intended for a wide-open Chris Bell but ended in Louisville’s bench certainly fit the latter, but Louisville’s occasional full-court pressure led to plenty of forced ones, too. A 13-0 UL run early in the first half included Ellis coaxing Mintz into a steal deep in the backcourt, leading to an easy layup.

Then to finish the half, with SU leading 34-31, Kamari Lands stole the ball from Mintz and Ellis finished on a putback layup. Another Syracuse turnover seconds later set up Brandon Huntley-Hatfield’s buzzer-beating jumper from the free-throw line, putting Louisville up one after 20 minutes.

The Mintz turnover that had Boeheim the most perplexed, though, came with six seconds left in the game. The point guard had run by Kamari Lands and it looked like he would draw a foul or run out the clock himself. Then he landed on his left hip, his legs pointing toward the baseline as Ellis grabbed the loose ball. “That didn’t just happen, did it?” Boeheim, who chalked it up as a “head stretching” freshman mistake, thought to himself after watching the play.

“The game’s over, just stop and hold the ball,” Boeheim said. “I don’t know what he was doing, really. He didn’t either, obviously.”

On the other side, Louisville head coach Kenny Payne repeatedly pointed to Louisville’s turnovers as the primary reason it lost the game. Even though the Cardinals did a good job moving the ball against the zone, tying a season-high 17 assists. To Payne, the turnovers represented a lack of additional assists UL could’ve racked up.

“I liked the 17 assists,” Payne said. “But what would it have been like if we don’t turn it over 21 times? Could that have been 15 more points? Eight more assists?”

Louisville has had a turnover problem all season, ranking 354th nationally in turnover percentage and coughing up the ball 18-plus times in seven games after Tuesday night. There were plenty of careless turnovers — like one early in the first half where Huntley-Hatfield simply threw the ball into the third row of the stands — but Syracuse also played strong defense.

Midway through the first half, Huntley-Hatfield had it on the baseline and tried to feed Sydney Curry with a bounce pass. But Justin Taylor rotated perfectly, intercepting the pass and feeding Mintz, who finished the layup to make it 27-21 Syracuse.

Redshirt freshman Mike James had his best game of the season against SU, finishing with 19 points and four made 3s, but Payne said he’s still concerned with the wing’s passing. James had three turnovers Tuesday, with a double-dribble early in the first half and bad passes later in the game where Payne said James was unsure of where to throw the ball. “They were tentative plays. I don’t like that,” the coach said.

Ellis’ 20 points also kept Louisville in the game, but a costly turnover with less than four minutes left proved costly. He coughed up the ball despite no pressure on him, and Mintz took it the other way for an uncontested two-handed dunk and a 61-60 Syracuse lead.

After Ellis’ — and UL’s — final turnover minutes later, Payne had the perfect ‘what just happened?’ look, with both his hands extended, palms up, his eyes darting, seeking the answer of how Syracuse had just escaped the KFC Yum! Center with a one-point win.

“I thought Syracuse was a very good team,” Payne said. “But the win for them was more about us…I don’t know how it was a one-point game when we had 21 turnovers, and they had 25 points off those 21 turnovers. That goes to show that we gave it away.”

There were 20 other Louisville turnovers, but the final play, where Ellis eyed a game-winning bucket but Edwards forced the ball out from behind, was the play where the Cardinals truly gave the game away. Louisville’s assistants thought there could’ve been a foul called on Syracuse, but in a game full of turnovers, it was only logical the final frenzy included not one turnover, but two.

“We gave it away,” Payne repeated.