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Syracuse’s offense exploded for 97 points in its 34-point win over Lafayette on Tuesday, its most in a season opener since scoring 97 against Siena to open the 2007-08 season. Joe Girard III led the Orange with 20 points, hitting all five of his 3-pointers, and SU dished out 26 assists — led by Buddy Boeheim’s six and Girard’s seven — while hitting 54.4% of its shots from the field.

For their next nonconference game, the Orange will host Drexel on Sunday in the Carrier Dome. The Dragons won the Colonial Athletic Association last season as the No. 6 seed, advancing to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1996 before falling to Illinois in the first round. Drexel led 8-7 at one point, but a 10-0 run by Illinois broke the game open and helped the Fighting Illini to a 29-point win. To open its 2021-22 season, Drexel cruised past Neumann by 29 points behind James Butler’s 16 points and Xavier Bell’s 14.

Here’s what you need to know about the Dragons (1-0) before their matchup with SU (1-0).

All-time series

Syracuse leads, 3-1.

Last time they played

The beginning of Syracuse’s 2010-11 season was defined by an 18-game winning streak that stretched into Big East play, and win No. 13 came on Dec. 22 in the Carrier Dome. SU defeated the Dragons, 93-65, behind Kris Joseph’s career-high 25 points and Scoop Jardine’s 21 — two of the four Orange players to tally double-digit point totals.

At the time, it was Syracuse’s season-best shooting output, as it shot 63.6% from the field and closed the nonconference portion of its schedule with 54 points in the paint. The Orange missed five of their first six shots before connecting on 27 of the next 35, according to ESPN, helping build a 13-point halftime lead and extend that further as the second half continued.

KenPom odds 

Syracuse has a 92% chance to win, with a projected score of 81-65.

The Drexel report

In their first win of the season, the Dragons scored 16 of the final 23 points before halftime to turn a six-point lead into 15. And when they scored 10 straight points in the opening two minutes of the second frame, that allowed their lead to quickly balloon into a blowout. 

Drexel returned Camren Wynter and Butler — its top two scorers from last year’s team — to its starting lineup, and the pair combined for 29 points, 12 assists and 12 rebounds in the win over the Knights. Though it allowed Neumann to shoot 43% from the field and 40% on 3-pointers, Drexel surrendered only three second-chance points and 12 fastbreak points. 

Last year, the Dragons operated with their slowest rate on offense since the 2015-16 team, with their average length of possession ending the year at 19.3 seconds — 333rd in the country in terms of speed, per KenPom. Syracuse averaged nearly five more possessions per game than Drexel had, with 68.6 compared to 63.9, but Drexel still ended the year with a top-50 offense in terms of effective field goal percentage. Four of its five regular starters shot at least 45% from the field, too.

How Syracuse beats Drexel 

The Orange’s average possession length against Lafeyette was 14.8 seconds, and operating at that speed, paired with the same efficiency that they had shooting the ball, will be necessary for avoiding an upset against Drexel. 

The Dragons only outrebounded Neumann by five rebounds, and Sunday will be a good early-season test to see if rebounding could be an area the Orange could take advantage of as the season continues. That’ll take strong crashing from Jimmy Boeheim, Cole Swider, Benny Williams and the guards up top. But if SU can corral those rebounds and push the ball the other way in transition, that’ll flip the pace and scoring rate into clips that Drexel likely can’t match.

Player to watch: Camren Wynter, guard, No. 11

Wynter recorded 13 points, eight assists and four rebounds for Drexel in the season-opening win against Neumann, the closest a Dragon came to recording a double-double, while making 6-of-7 shots from the field. He earned All-CAA First Team last year after recording 16.3 points and 5.2 assists per game, which ranked fifth and sixth in the conference, respectively, and led Drexel in 3-point percentage with a 41.5 rate. 

The senior guard from Hempstead, New York, has started 83 of the 85 games he’s appeared in over his Drexel career and played 89.9% of the team’s minutes last season, recording four fouls in a game just twice and leading the Dragons with an average of 2.1 fouls called per 40 minutes. Syracuse, by comparison, had two players finish with lower rates, as Buddy and Girard both recorded just 1.8 fouls called per 40 minutes.

Stat to know: 28.1

Butler finished the 2020-21 season with a 28.1% defensive rebounding percentage, which ranked 14th in the country. As a team, Drexel’s defensive rebounding percentage sat 34th, while Syracuse ended with a percentage nearly 10 points higher (34.0) and finished No. 339. 

The season openers for both teams introduced different trends for each team — especially with Swider’s 12 boards and Syracuse outrebounding Lafayette by 18 — but Butler, a 6-foot-8 forward who ranks seventh at Drexel in all-time rebounds, still poses a threat for Syracuse to deal with on the glass.

Published on November 10, 2021 at 8:19 pm

Contact Andrew: [email protected] | @CraneAndrew