Mason, Baylor use stunning shooting performance to bounce Syracuse 78-69 from NCAA Tournament

(Carter Williams, KSL.com)


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SALT LAKE CITY — The threes had to eventually stop falling.

There just simply wasn’t a way that Baylor and Syracuse could keep shooting the way they were in the first half of an NCAA Tournament opener Thursday night.

The Orange and Bears made 11 of their first 13 makes from distance, and both shot better than 50 percent from 3-point range in the first half.

Syracuse eventually cooled off.

Baylor never did.

Makai Mason poured in 22 points and four assists, and Baylor shot 53 percent from the field to out-duel the Orange 78-69 in the final game of the first round of the Salt Lake City regional Thursday night at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

Jared Butler added 14 points, four rebounds and four assists for the Bears (20-13), who advanced to face top-seed Gonzaga on Saturday.

"It was fun to go back and forth with them," Mason said. "We weren’t expecting them to hit shots like that. They hit some tough ones.

"At the end of the day, we ain’t supposed to be here — and we’re just happy to be moving on."

Elijah Hughes scored a game-high 25 points, including six 3-pointers, to lead Syracuse (20-14), and teammate Tyus Battle added 16 points and three assists for an Orange squad that was playing without starter Frank Howard. The Syracuse point guard has been suspended indefinitely, the university Wednesday afternoon.

Baylor head coach Scott Drew (center) celebrates with Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades and school president Linda Livingstone after the Bears' 78-69 win over Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Vivint Arena on Thursday, March 21, 2019. (Photo: Carter Williams, KSL.com)
Baylor head coach Scott Drew (center) celebrates with Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades and school president Linda Livingstone after the Bears' 78-69 win over Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Vivint Arena on Thursday, March 21, 2019. (Photo: Carter Williams, KSL.com)

"Obviously, we missed him," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "He is our point guard.

"I'm not going to sit here and make excuses. He isn't here. Would we have liked to have had him? Yeah."

Still, the two teams combined for 49 field goals, with the Bears out-shooting Syracuse 16-12 from the 3-point line.

Baylor attacked the Orange’s trademark 2-3 zone defense the only way they knew how: with 3-point shooting. The Bears opened with six 3-pointers, jumping out to an 18-10 lead seven minutes into the game Mason became the fourth player to hit from deep.

The plan was working well for Baylor coach Scott Drew.

"I told them they could shoot 40 today," the affable head coach deadpanned. "I did want to make 25, though. So we were a little short — on both fronts."

Syracuse threw a wrench in that plan: they started hitting threes, too.

The two teams combined to make 12 3-pointers through the first 10 minutes of the game while making just three attempts from inside the arc.

The Orange regained the lead when Battle was fouled on a 3-point attempt. The Naismith watch list candidate swished the trey from the left wing with 6:53 to go to in the half, then added the foul shot to give Syracuse its first lead 28-25.

Both teams shot better than 50 percent from three in the first half, with Baylor edging the Orange 55.6-52.9 percent en route to a 38-37 halftime edge.

"I think our mentality going into the game, that we had to make shots, was important," said Baylor's Jared Butler, who finished with 14 points and five rebounds on 5-of-11 shooting. "We know when we play zone and guys hit tough shots, it's heartbreaking. So we had that same mentality going into this game and we had to lock down on defense."

Baylor held Syracuse without a field goal for more than four minutes, from Brissett’s layup with 9:47 left until Hughes’ three with 4:51 on the clock.

That allowed the Bears to run out to an 11-2 spurt, taking a 68-59 lead on Mario Kegeler’s trey with 5:39 remaining.

Hughes scored all six points during a personal 6-0 run in 40 seconds to pull the Orange back within three, 68-65 by the under-4 media timeout. But the Orange never retook the lead and Baylor held on for its first tournament since a Sweet 16 run in 2017.

"Honestly, being picked ninth in the Big 12, we harp on that a lot these days. We have the underdog mentality," Mason said. "We're not backing down from anybody."

Makai had a career-high 31 points the last time he was in the NCAA Tournament — when he led Yale to a stunning victory over Baylor in the 2016 tournament, the Bulldogs’ first in more than a half-century.

Three years later, as a graduate transfer with the Bears, Mason celebrated another stunning win — this time in Salt Lake City.

"Both are very different, but both are very special for their own reasons," Mason said. "When I was at Yale, we hadn’t been in the tournament for like 64 years. We were huge underdogs in that game. With Baylor, they missed the last two years, and just go through that physically and mentally.

"To go through all that physically and mentally, and to. Go out here and compete against the best, going into March Madness. — you can’t write a better story."

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