SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The High Point University men’s basketball team led 40-39 early in the second half before a big run lifted No. 2 Syracuse to a 75-54 win over the Panthers on Friday evening at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, N.Y. Junior guard Devante Wallace led the Panthers with 10 points.
Syracuse is the highest-ranked team the Panthers have ever played. The previous highest-ranked team was No. 3 North Carolina on Dec. 9, 2006. High Point fell to 3-7 while Syracuse improved to 11-0.
“I’m proud of the effort, our guys competed the whole game,” said HPU head coach Scott Cherry. “It’s tough against these guys, it’s hard to get good looks. We had a lot of turnovers in the second half but I thought a lot of them were being aggressive trying to get to the basket. We took a step in the right direction, we’ll be where we need to be in January and February.”
High Point had led, 40-39, when Wallace hit a jumper with 16:39 left in the game. Syracuse used a 28-3 run to put the game away, holding the Panthers scoreless for nearly 10 minutes in the second half.
Wallace hit a pair of three-pointers and freshman guard Anthony Lindauer scored nine points all on three-pointers. In his first career start, freshman Jorge Perez-Laham had six assists. Redshirt-sophomore John Brown scored six points with a team-high six rebounds.
Syracuse was led by Trevor Cooney, who scored 17 points and went 5-for-6 from beyond the arc. C.J. Fair scored 15 points with five boards and Tyler Ennis and Jerami Grant each scored 10. The Orange shot 53.7 percent (29-for-54) in the game and forced 15 turnovers in the second half.
Down 37-34 at halftime, Fair hit a layup for the Orange coming out of the break but the Panthers scored the next six points to take the lead. Redshirt-freshman forward Cliff Cornish hit a pair of free throws which were followed by a dunk in transition by Brown. Wallace’s jumper made it 40-39.
Baye Moussa Keita’s layup with 16:08 left lifted Syracuse back into the lead and Ennis scored the next two baskets. He hit a layup, then stole the inbounds pass for another layup that made it 45-40. The Orange took a 50-40 lead before Lindauer banked a deep three off the glass with 13:41 left. Syracuse scored the next 17 points, holding the Panthers scoreless until a Lorenzo Cugini trey with 3:54 remaining that made it 67-46.
Early in the game, High Point had been down by 10 (19-9) when Moussa Keita finished a three-point play with 11:55 left in the first half, before the Panthers went on a 13-4 run to tie the game. Wallace hit a long three-pointer to make it 24-24.
Adam Weary made it 31-31 when he grabbed an offensive rebound and passed it to Cugini on the outside, who passed it back to Weary for a three-pointer from the corner. SU’s Jerami Grant hit a layup before the Panthers went back down the floor for a Lindauer trey that made it 34-33 in favor of the Panthers, their first lead of the game. Ennis hit a jumper and Grant drained two free throws going into halftime.
High Point shot 50 percent (14-for-28) from the floor in the first half and 35 percent (21-for-48) in the second half. HPU hit eight three-pointers in the game.
The Panthers are back on the road after Christmas with another BCS-level opponent as they take on Arkansas on Saturday, Dec. 28, in Fayetteville, Ark. The team continues its road swing at Wofford on Dec. 30.