Syracuse forced 33 turnovers and scored 33 points off them to cruise to a 71-55, regular season-ending win over Boston College (14-14, 2-13 Atlantic Coast) on Thursday night. The No. 18 Orange (23-6, 13-3) clinched a No. 3 seed in the conference tournament, earning a double bye, and tied a program record for regular season wins.

SU finished the regular season on a program-best nine-game conference winning streak. It matched its program record for conference wins (13) in a regular season. The Orange won’t play again until March 4 at 8 p.m. in Greensboro, North Carolina in the third round of the conference tournament.

“Thirteen wins in conference play. That’s a really, really good season in any conference,” assistant coach Vonn Read said. “It’s definitely been the best since I’ve been here. It’s been the best in our program history.”

When Syracuse beat Boston College in January — the win that started the team’s current streak — it won by just one point in the final seconds against an inferior opponent. When the first quarter ended on Thursday, SU, again, found itself ahead only by one thanks to a buzzer-beating 3 by BC’s Nicole Boudreau.

The Eagles had turned the ball over on nearly half of their possessions up to that point, but shot 69 percent from the floor and 75 percent from 3-point range to stay in the game.

“We kind of let them get away from us a little bit,” Read said. “… They were making some shots, but once we settled down we did a better job.”

Syracuse’s press was stingy, but its offense struggled to pull away. After Boston College tied the game with six and a half minutes remaining in the half, the Orange responded with a 10-0 run to take a 39-29 lead into the break.

For nearly 12 minutes, going back to the start of the SU run, the Eagles didn’t score a point and turned the ball over 13 times.

“We struggled at times,” Read said. “We had some runs. We really scored a lot of our points off turnovers.”

Boston College pulled within four points in the final minute of the third quarter, but couldn’t hold on. The Orange countered with a 22-4 run that lasted until there was just a minute left in the fourth and the game was very much out of reach.

Published on February 25, 2016 at 10:36 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus