The Syracuse University men's basketball team earned a victory on Wednesday night by beating Mercyhurst 76-62 at the JMA Wireless Dome. The win moves the Orange to 7-4 on the season and helps atone for a loss on Saturday against Hofstra.

The Lakers are now 4-8 as they continue the transition from Division II to Division I.

Here's what you need to know.

Orange look sloppy still

Despite saying they wanted to change it, Syracuse looked flat at the start once again. Though they ultimately outscored the Lakers by 16 in the first half, they just looked disjointed both offensively and defensively. Adrian Autry has spoken about his team needing to play with a "level-five energy," and it just didn't seem present tonight.

Inside the box score

--On that note, Syracuse committed 16 turnovers, which is more than the 15 that Merychurst committed.

--The Orange had only 12 assists, proving again that there's too much isolation ball and not enough movement.

--Syracuse had a balanced scoring attack again, as five players scored in double-figures. JJ Starling (15) and William Kyle III (15) led the way while Sadiq White Jr. (13), Kiyan Anthony (12) and Naithan George (12) followed.

--Syracuse shot 49 percent from the floor but just 24 percent (4-of-17) from three-point range.

--Kyle also had 12 rebounds and five blocks as he continues his excellent season.

A positive development

The Orange, who entered play as the worst free-throw shooting team in the nation, went 12-of-16 (75 percent) from the charity stripe. That's the best performance of the season so far and bodes well as they approach conference play (12/31). Also, Anthony had another efficient game offensively, getting his 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting. It's his second consecutive solid game and he played 21 minutes.

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Need for improvement

As we said the other day, this team is really struggling in the half-court. Twelve assists vs. 16 turnovers is not good enough and the Orange are too stagnant in the half-court. One of two things needs to happen in short order:

1) Either Syracuse needs to move the ball better and generate good shots in the half-court or...

2) They need to get back to playing with that level-five energy, forcing turnovers, and creating scoring chances in the transition game.

Up next

Syracuse is back in action on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. ET. They'll take on Northeastern at the JMA Wireless Dome and our own Tom Goslowski will be there in person. Follow him @TomGozz.

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