Men's Basketball

Roberson turns in up and down performance following injury in Syracuse loss

Chase Gaewski | Staff Photographer

Tyler Roberson walks to the bench with stitches on his eye. He was injured during the game, and turned in an up and down performance in the Syracuse loss to Pittsburgh.

By Phil D'Abbraccio

With cotton in his nose to stop the bleeding and stitches above his left eye — which at times seemed nearly closed — Tyler Roberson resembled a boxer more so than a basketball player.

Due to Roberson’s injury, which he suffered 10 minutes into the game, he played a little less than he usually does. Yet he still came away with a hard-fought nine points and seven rebounds in addition to his battle scars in Syracuse’s (17-10, 7-7) 65-61 loss to Pittsburgh (18-10, 7-7 Atlantic Coast) on Saturday in the Carrier Dome.

Roberson wasn’t too sure about how it happened, but he believed a Panther’s elbow — SU guard Ron Patterson said it was Pittsburgh forward Michael Young’s — caught him over his left eye and drew blood.

Holding a white towel to the left side of his face, Roberson walked to the SU locker room where trainer Brad Pike fixed him up with five or six stitches and numbing. Roberson applied ice when he returned to the bench and re-entered the game with 1:28 left in the first half.

“I feel fine. I just had to go out there and finish out the game,” Roberson said.



Roberson racked up three offensive rebounds in the first five minutes of the game — there were plenty of SU misses to be grabbed — and had five points by the time of his injury.

He tipped in a Syracuse missed shot 2:47 into the second half and blocked a Jamel Artis layup attempt two minutes later.

The Orange held a 13-rebound edge over the Panthers at halftime, but didn’t outrebound its opponent in the second half as each side grabbed 12 — and Roberson had just one rebound in the last 17 minutes of the game.

But he reappeared in the last two minutes, attacking the middle of the paint for a basket to cut the deficit to 60-55 and snatching a defensive board 24 seconds later.

His brief reemergence was too late for SU, though.

“That’s a tough matchup, for him to go against Pitt’s bigs,” SU forward Michael Gbinije said. “I’m content with his effort and I feel like he didn’t do anything wrong out there. Just one of those games for him, but we all know he’s a good player.”





Top Stories