Editor’s note: The Daily Orange was not at the Clemson game Tuesday night. Our reporters are providing coverage after watching the game on TV.

Tyus Battle had done nothing all game. Three points. One-of-six from the field. A dud after a career-high 23 points against Virginia just three days prior.

Then came the magic.

Just over five seconds remained with Syracuse inbounding the ball from under its own basket. John Gillon drew a double team before hitting the 3-point line and shoveling the ball to a trailing Tyler Lydon. The sophomore drove right, to almost the exact spot where the ball deflected off his shin and out of bounds less than a minute prior. He drew two defenders and kicked right to a wide-open Battle in the corner.

The freshman unleashed. Syracuse’s bench threw their hands up in anticipation. Jim Boeheim shuffled to his left, arms suspended in midair. When the shot fell, he tossed them straight over his head and mustered a jog out of his 72-year-old body toward the handshake line. Teammates and coaches mobbed Battle, now at the center of attention after being the farthest thing from it for 39 minutes and 59 seconds.

“He didn’t have a great night tonight, but when he caught it, I thought he was going to make it,” Boeheim said. “… It was a great shot, big-time play from a freshman.”

Syracuse, the team with a pathetic nonconference resume, has won five conference games in a row after the Orange’s (16-9, 8-4 Atlantic Coast) 82-81 triumph over Clemson (13-10, 3-8) at Littlejohn Coliseum on Tuesday night. Battle played hero for one second, but four others scored in double figures as Syracuse somehow found a way to keep steering away from the black hole its season looked headed into only three weeks ago.

“We know,” Battle said to CuseTV, “we’re trying to make a Tournament push right now.”

Selection Sunday is still over a month away, but it feels as if every game is an end-all-be-all for Syracuse’s March fate after how it started the season. And that Orange team of December, the one that played little defense and couldn’t create its own shot on the other end, re-appeared when the ball was tipped Tuesday night.

The Orange started horridly, unable to penetrate and ice cold from behind the arc. Clemson carved up the zone – CU shot 68.4 percent on 2-pointers in the first 20 minutes – like it’s done in the last two matchups between the two teams, both Tigers wins. The hosts stretched their lead to 12 before the midway point of the half, but SU received a spark off the bench from Tyler Roberson and Frank Howard, along with Andrew White, to crawl back in the game.

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MORE COVERAGE

• Fan reactions from Syracuse’s win over Clemson
• Superlatives from Syracuse’s 82-81 victory over Clemson
• What we learned from Syracuse’s 82-81 last-second win over Clemson

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Syracuse took a 38-34 lead on a White corner 3-ball with 1:30 left before the break, but the hosts finished the half on a 6-0 run. It was capped off by a blunder from SU, when Howard intentionally fouled Marcquise Reed near halfcourt with 2.8 seconds left since he thought the Orange had a foul to give. It didn’t, and Reed knocked down the ensuing pair from the charity stripe to give Clemson a 40-38 lead at halftime.

“We just haven’t been able to stop people (on the road),” Boeheim said. “Two games we’ve won on the road in a row, we just played good offense. We gotta find some way to play better defense.”

Battle took over 23 minutes to put the ball in the hoop Tuesday night. He and fellow freshman Taurean Thompson scored SU’s first 15 points of the second half (Thompson had 12 of them). The Orange reclaimed its slim lead, only to give it away courtesy of that same swiss-cheese defense that has been its own kryptonite away from home.

But all Battle and the Orange needed was one more shot. Boeheim saw Clemson center Sidy Djitte guarding Battle. A drive, he knew, would draw Djitte to the middle and free up the freshman in the corner. That’s exactly how it panned out, and all that needed to happen was something that rarely did in the almost 40 minutes prior.

“They weren’t on me, so I just knew I had to knock down the shot,” he said. “I knew one had to fall sometime.”

With Matthew Moyer’s right arm draped around his neck walking into the tunnel, Battle grinned wide but didn’t offer any extravagant celebration. It’s not his nature, Boeheim said. Instead, his teammates took care of the hoopla for him.

One of the last players to file through was Thompson. He shrugged, an expression on his face that said, “How?”

How has Syracuse won five in a row after looking lost for two months? How did a struggling freshman come up with arguably the biggest shot of the season? How, when five games ago SU didn’t even seem guaranteed for any postseason, is the Orange right back in the thick of the NCAA Tournament bubble?

The Orange has now won twice as many games as it has lost in the best conference in college basketball. And if it wasn’t already clear, a fifth straight win showed this much: Syracuse basketball is back.

Published on February 7, 2017 at 10:15 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman