The Syracuse University men's basketball team moved to 6-3 on Thursday night with a 71-63 win over visiting St. Joseph's at the JMA Wireless Dome.

The Orange led by just four points at halftime and outscored the Hawks by four points again in the second stanza en route to the victory, which they obtained without Donnie Freeman, who missed his fourth straight game with a right foot injury.

Freshman Tyler Betsey led the way with 16 points, connecting on three three-pointers, and four others scored in double-figures for the Orange.

Syracuse hadn't played since Dec. 2 and it showed at times, but they did ultimately win their second game in a row. However, after the game, head coach Adrian Autry said the group needs to put forth a better effort consistently, and he said they need to focus on their attention to detail.

"Today, in particular, it's really more about us not getting to the level five. Too many dips. I thought that caused a lot of inconsistency in our defensive effort. With that being said, still holding them to 63, but just thought we just had too many dips.

I thought at the end of the game we couldn't get the rebounds, we couldn't get the stops that we needed to get. But overall, I thought we made some plays that we needed to make. It wasn't pretty. It was not a pretty game at all.

We just played against a really good St. Joseph team. Especially offensively, we've got to do a better job. We got to stop fouling as much, and a lot of that is just our inconsistency and attention to detail. So we got to do a little bit better job than that... A lot to work on."

It's a sentiment that freshman Kiyan Anthony also echoed, as he told Roundtable Sports that they "came out a little flat." He said it took some time get in rhythm after a big win against No. 13 Tennessee and the long layoff that followed.

Anthony scored six points of his own in 20 minutes of action.

Need to know

--Autry didn't think the effort was poor all game long, saying that he thought the team had spurts of playing how they want to play.

--The Orange struggled again from the free-throw line, going just 15-of-28 (54 percent).

--Syracuse only committed 10 turnovers and registered an impressive seven blocks, with William Kyle III having four.

--St. Joe's entered play with the highest free-throw shooting percentage in the nation, and they went just 18-of-27 (67 percent).

Up next

The Orange will be at home again on Saturday afternoon (4 p.m. ET) when they host Hofstra at the JMA Wireless Dome. We'll have live on-site coverage from Brady Farkas, who you can follow on social media @RefuseToLosePod.

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