Led by Nate Kingz’s 27 points, Syracuse came away with a 107-100 double-overtime win against visiting Cal on Wednesday night.
William Kyle III collected his fourth double-double of the season for the Orange (14-11, 5-7 Atlantic Coast Conference) with 15 points and a career-high 16 rebounds. He was assisted to the bench by Syracuse staff in the second OT after sustaining what appeared to be a lower-body injury after diving out of bounds to secure a rebound.
Syracuse’s J.J. Starling scored 21 points and collected a season high four steals.
Dai Dai Ames led the Golden Bears (17-8, 5-7 ACC) with 23 points, including 19 after halftime. John Camden added 21 points, and Chris Bell scored 18 points in his first game against his former team.
Cal’s Justin Pippen scored 11 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out seven assists before fouling out in overtime.
An 8-2 run to start the second overtime, capped by a Kingz 3-pointer, put the Orange ahead for good.
With 41 seconds left in regulation, Ames made a driving layup in traffic to tie the game at 78. Ames had a chance to win the game at the buzzer in regulation but missed a heavily contested fadeaway jumper.
At the end of the first overtime, Cal’s Milos Ilic secured an offensive rebound after an Ames miss and scored a layup in traffic at the buzzer to tie the game at 91 and push it to double overtime.
Ilic collected his first double-double of the campaign, posting season highs of 16 points and 14 rebounds.
Syracuse’s Naithan George made his lone 3-pointer of the game in the corner from a drive-and-kick play with Kingz to put Syracuse in front 78-76 with just under a minute left in the second half. On the night, George scored 14 points and handed out 10 assists.
Syracuse’s leading scorer on the season, Donnie Freeman, bounced back from a season low of five points against Virginia on Saturday to score 16 points.
In the second half, the game was briefly paused due to a citywide power outage that affected Western New York. The teams played the overtime periods without power due to another outage that occurred and relied on an in-arena power generator to finish the game.
