There was no Andrew White to sink his standard 3-pointer from the wing to open the scoring for Syracuse. Not at the beginning of the game. Not in the middle. Not at the end.

For the first time all season, White didn’t hit a shot from behind the arc. He made only one all game, a tip-in centimeters from the basket off his own missed layup.

That make didn’t come until over three minutes into the second half, as Syracuse’s leading scorer was rendered completely ineffective by Malik Ellison and the St. John’s box-and-one defense. White scored only two points on the night, by far his season-low, and shot 1-of-6 from the field and 0-of-2 from 3 while turning the ball over four times in the Orange’s (7-5) 93-60 embarrassment at the hands of the Red Storm (6-7) Wednesday night in the Carrier Dome.

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“That’s the least amount of space I’ve had. (Ellison) was just nose-to-nose,” White said. “Just by me being guarded that closely, I think it threw everyone off.”

That, coming from the mouth of SU’s leading scorer, is concerning. Especially after a game against Eastern Michigan in which eight players scored in double figures for the first time since Jan. 17, 1979 against Siena. Syracuse has a handful of players who have proven capable of scoring in bunches, but White has been the most consistent scorer over the course of the season. Against semi-competent teams, that depth vanishes.

Even though Tyler Lydon scored 16 points two days after sitting out the entire second half with a sprained right Achilles tendon, White thought the entire team’s rhythm was off with him shut down.

Ellison was in White’s grill in the box-and-one — a defense in which four players set up in a zone and the fifth man-marks someone –—to begin the game before St. John’s temporarily switched to a man-to-man defense. The fifth-year senior didn’t score in the opening half, taking only one shot and even turning the ball over on a double-dribble.

“That was the game plan the whole week,” Ellison said. “He’s a great player, a great shooter. I just had to chase him the whole game and I did a very good job.”

After White’s tip-in, he sunk back into oblivion as St. John’s blew the game wide open. He could only watch as Bashir Ahmed soared through the air to throw down a two-handed dunk and knocked down a 3-pointer while being fouled less than two minutes later. As the Red Storm issued an utter beatdown of the Orange, the entire visiting bench exploded after every bucket while Syracuse’s bench didn’t move.

The five on the floor, White included, sluggishly paced off the floor with under two minutes remaining as the walk-ons entered in Syracuse’s wrong kind of blowout. St. John’s had succeeded in shutting down the one player it set out to.

“Teams are gonna deny him as much as they can,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said.

St. John’s head coach Chris Mullin watched White on tape this week. He then watched him shoot during warmups. Mullin’s conclusion: White was one of the best shooters he’s seen.

But on Wednesday night, he was anything but that.

“A guy like that can go off and hit 8-to-10 3s,” Mullin said. “He was a focal point for us.”

Published on December 21, 2016 at 11:40 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman