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INDIANAPOLIS — Buddy Boeheim stood still, his hands on his hips, as Houston players slapped hands in front of him. He looked around Hinkle Fieldhouse as the final horn sounded on SU’s 2021 campaign. 

It wasn’t the moment Buddy had always dreamt of in the Sweet 16. He grew up with a front-row seat to Final Four runs in 2013 and 2016 and vicariously experienced the 2003 championship through his family. His whole life, he wanted to wear an Orange jersey deep into March. 

Almost nobody believed Buddy would make it this far in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Buddy was a lightly recruited, moderately athletic, late-blooming son of a legendary coach. Syracuse, a team that scraped into the field of 68, was in just 4.3% of ESPN brackets to reach the Sweet 16. 

Buddy, who scored 30 and 25 in SU’s first two tournament wins, was the biggest reason for the Orange defying expectations. But he wasn’t superhuman on Saturday, and now Syracuse’s season is over. The No. 11 Orange (18-10, 9-7 Atlantic Coast) beat the odds all the way to the Sweet 16, until No. 2 Houston (27-3 14-3 American Athletic) was too tough, too big and too smart for them. And Buddy, who put on his superhero cape all March, couldn’t save the day this time, finishing with 12 points on 3-for-13 shooting (1-for-9 from 3). SU scored a tournament record-low 46 points on 28% shooting overall. 

“Everybody counted us out,” senior Marek Dolezaj said postgame. “They told us, ‘You don’t deserve to be in March Madness.’ But I think we showed them and proved everybody that we deserve to be here and made this run after the season.”

Buddy’s play in the tournament turned Syracuse’s chances into a shrug. Could the Orange keep winning? As long as Buddy kept firing, SU had a chance. Sure.

The junior entered the NCAA Tournament on a historic scoring pace, then averaged 22.3 points in three March Madness games. He recorded more points, more efficiently, than Tyus Battle in 2018. He scored more per game in March than anyone on the 2013 and 2016 Final Four ensembles. He hit almost as many 3s — 15 to 14 — as Gerry McNamara in SU’s 2004 Sweet 16 run. 

This run made Buddy a phenomenon. A video of him saying “I’m a bucket” after hitting a 3 went viral on social media. After the LSU-Michigan second-round game, unrelated fans started chanting his name as they filed to the exits. The performances got Buddy on ESPN’s “First Take,” national radio shows and podcasts. They also put the NBA on notice. 

Yet Buddy couldn’t keep doing this forever. Not with Syracuse throwing up as many air balls as points in the opening minutes on Saturday, not with the Cougars creating second chances by crashing the glass over an undersized SU frontline or generating open shots against the zone. 

There was also DeJon Jarreau, the 6-foot-5 redshirt senior guard, defending him. The 2021 AAC Defensive Player of the Year stuck with Buddy everywhere he went. Jarreau forced the junior who’s hardly missed in a month into a bad air ball, to which Buddy threw his right hand, shook his head in disgust and tapped his chest. 

“I knew it was going to be a battle,” Buddy said. “(Jarreau) just jammed me coming off screens, jammed handoffs, whatever it was. He was just great. I got some looks I got to make, and I put that on myself.”

Buddy started 1-for-5 from the floor, struggling to find a rhythm, with four of his first six points coming from the foul stripe. Houston’s guards pressed on Buddy and SU’s other 3-point shooters, and its athletic frontcourt physically disrupted off-ball screens. The Orange shot 5-of-23 (21.7%) from 3, its worst since January. 

Buddy came off a pindown, but Jarreau stuck right with him. He found enough shooting space but short-rimmed a 3. A possession later, he turned a bounce pass over near halfcourt, which Marcus Sasser took the other way for 2. 

SU’s swarming 2-3 defense, as well as reserves Jesse Edwards and Kadary Richmond, kept it close as it searched for offense. At halftime, with Houston up 30-20, Buddy was 1-for-7. In prior games, Buddy was so efficient and crafty, SU ran most of its halfcourt offense through him. He’d improved his off-the-bounce playmaking, hitting pull-ups and dishing kick-outs when the defense collapsed. 

No. 11 Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament run came to an end against Houston in the Sweet 16. Alan Griffin managed just two points. Courtesy of Trevor Brown Jr | NCAA Photos

In SU’s two tournament wins, Buddy scored 55 points, accounting for 28.4% of SU’s offense. He took nearly 20% of SU’s field goals in that span (19 of 99). He was SU’s offensive motor, and he was humming. But with him out of sorts, SU struggled. Joe Girard III was the only other SU player to reach double-digits. 

Before Buddy went nuclear at the start of March, Syracuse was an average team. Two losses to Pittsburgh, as well as defeats to Duke, Georgia Tech and Clemson tainted its tournament resume. It only had one Quadrant 1 win before the NCAA Tournament, even with its four-game winning streak to finish the season. 

But the highs and lows of the pandemic season yielded to a turnaround down the stretch. Behind Buddy and SU’s patented 2-3 zone that seems to startle teams in March, the Orange dismantled No. 6 San Diego State and edged out No. 3 West Virginia in Indianapolis. The lows hardly mattered as SU overachieved in the tournament. 

So against Houston, when Buddy didn’t bring his A-game, the margin for error became microscopic. When Girard closed out late to Houston junior Quentin Grimes (game-high 14 points) early in the second half, the Cougars took their biggest lead of the night, 39-27. Houston dissected the 2-3 zone by screening the top and cutting through the weak side. 

Even Buddy, an 85% free-throw shooter, missed two foul shots. But then he hit his first 3 — a wide-open look off a down-screen — to make it 39-30. Then, a right-handed floater in the lane. Richmond hit a corner 3 to bring SU within four.

But that stretch was the closest Buddy got to heating up, and the offense fell stagnant. Five out SU’s 14 made shots were assisted. Buddy kept firing but rose up over Jarreau and hit the back rim. SU scored two points in a seven-minute stretch with bricked 3s and turnovers. Houston didn’t double the post and loaded up to the ball when Dolezaj slipped to the basket or drove.

“We just talked all week about five people guarding the ball,” Houston head coach Kelvin Sampson said. “It’s not one person or two people. It’s five. Five people had to be in the right spot. And I thought for the most part we were.” 

Syracuse’s season came to an end in a loss to No. 2 seed Houston in the Sweet 16. Courtesy of Trevor Brown Jr | NCAA Photos

It finally looked like Syracuse was going to get an easy bucket when Quincy Guerrier streaked all alone off a broken play, but Grimes sprinted back from halfcourt and poked the ball away from Guerrier, leading to an and-1 bucket on the other end. The five-point swing put the Cougars ahead by 11, deflating SU almost as much as Jarreau’s (nine points, eight assists, eight rebounds) run-out, two-handed jam and point to the fans did moments later. 

Another Buddy try with three minutes left air-balled. He back-rimmed another with his team trailing by 24. Houston dominated on both ends as SU scrambled for non-Buddy answers. 

Buddy, who said postgame he’s returning to SU for his senior year, had his lowest output since Feb. 27 after an otherwise spectacular month. He wiped his face with his jersey before meeting Jarreau near midcourt and waving to the rest of the Cougars. 

The magic always runs out, at least for every team but one. Syracuse and The Buddy Show now have to wait for next year’s renewal, one with an incoming five-star recruit and a potentially tumultuous offseason full of transfers eligible to play right away. 

“This is one of the best years that I have ever had coaching,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “For these guys to get through this and to get to this stage, I think, is just unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable. I couldn’t be more proud of a basketball team than I am of this team.”

Published on March 28, 2021 at 12:28 am

Contact Danny: [email protected] | @DannyEmerman