Las Vegas – It would be easy to look at a box score from Iowa State’s 95-64 dismantling of Syracuse here and conclude the Orange could not guard the Cyclones.
And while that is true, the primary problem for Syracuse in these three Players Era Festival games has been a lack of purpose on offense.
A rudderless Orange has resulted in too much standing, too much dribbling, insufficient recognition of what the defense is presenting and on Wednesday, turnovers that led to easy Cyclones buckets.
Iowa State scored 20 points in the second half off Orange turnovers. As those mistakes ballooned, they deflated any energy left in the Syracuse tank.
“Proud of our guys for their execution second-half defensively, setting the tone with the ball pressure, generating turnovers and scoring off our defense,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said. “That’s our identity.”
That’s what Syracuse wants its identity to be.
But the Orange is not generating those kinds of easy fast break buckets and instead has slogged through a stagnant half-court offense that spends too much time deliberating and dribbling.
Naithan George, the third-year point guard Syracuse recruited out of the transfer portal from Georgia Tech, was underwhelming here.
In three games, he has struggled to get past his defender and sometimes looks lost out there. Against three of the nation’s top defenses, George was 6-of-22 from the field, had 12 assists, 13 turnovers and a total of 21 points.
Teams have strung him out by doubling him, thereby killing valuable shot clock time and creating perilous, turnover-prone situations. Teammates did not come to the ball to bail him out.
SU coach Adrian Autry said his team needs to do a better job “collectively” of rescuing George.
“There are some things that we need to tweak to help everyone, right?” he said. “That’s where we’re at as far as being able to help him and help the team. We’re still trying to put it all together and I think we’ve had moments. We just really haven’t caught a groove yet, which I’m sure he will.”
When teams aggressively smother his point guard, Autry wants to see “better decisions.”
Iowa State essentially guarded George the same way Houston covered him earlier in the week. In those two games, George recorded eight assists and 13 turnovers.
Autry, a skilled point guard during his playing career, said it sometimes takes a while to figure out new teammates and a new system. George himself said that earlier this year. (Players were not available Wednesday.)
SU is seven games into the 2025-26 season.
It needs to get better, smarter production from its point guard.
“We’ve asked him to really focus on both sides of the ball and he’s done a tremendous job of that,” Autry said. “So, I think some adjusting does need to take place for him. I don’t worry about Nait. He’s a resilient kid. He’s a hard worker. He’ll get it turned around.”
