West Virginia Upsets No. 10 Syracuse

Syracuse’s full-court press took a bigger toll on the Orangemen.

Calvin Bowman scored 20 points and West Virginia survived a second-half scare for an 87-76 victory over No. 10 Syracuse on Saturday.

Josh Yeager scored eight of his 15 points in the final three minutes to help West Virginia, 15-8 overall and 6-6 in the Big East Conference, ward off a comeback by Syracuse, which nearly overcame a 15-point deficit but wore down from its own relentless pursuit.

“We got tired. You can only press for so long,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said. “We were doing really well, but it takes too much to do that for that long.”

February hasn’t been kind to the Orangemen (19-6, 7-5), who are 2-3 and have failed to shoot 50% in any of those games. Syracuse shot 36.5% Saturday, missing 25 of 30 three-point shots.

“You’re going to have months like this in the Big East. Every season there is a stretch when a team faces controversy,” Boeheim said. “We just have to forget about this and move on.

“We have 19 wins and are in good position. I’m not sure a lot of people expected us to be here.”

Few people probably expected the Mountaineers to keep up with Syracuse, but West Virginia controlled the inside game throughout and never trailed in the second half.

They outrebounded the Orangemen, 54-31, with Chris Moss getting 14 and Bowman 12.

“Me and Chris both wanted the ball,” Bowman said. “We tried to mix it up and use our quickness to get the ball. It doesn’t matter the height when you’re rebounding. It matters how bad you want the ball.”