The Syracuse Orange (9-9, 3-4 ACC) came back from a 17-point deficit to defeat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (8-10, 2-5 ACC) 77-69 Saturday afternoon in the JMA Wireless Dome. 

The story of this game is that each team's best player, J.J. Starling for Syracuse and Markus Burton for Notre Dame, played in this one unlike the first match, a 69-64 Notre Dame win. Early on Burton stole the show. He scored 22 points in the first half, helping the Irish take a nine-point lead into halftime. Right before the half the Orange comeback was sparked by a quick 7-0 run. Kyle Cuffe Jr. hit a three and on their very next possesion, Elijah Moore converted a four-point play. The Orange outscored Notre Dame 44-27 in the second half to seal the win. 

"We showed a lot of heart, I thought we showed a lot of resilience," Adrian Autry said postgame. "I thought our defense was the key, especially in the second half. We just grinded and fought, to be able to pull out a win like that after missing 13 free throws, it's a credit to all of those guys everybody who stepped on the floor gave us something." 

JJ Starling, who scored just four points against Louisville on Tuesday said after that he would never have a game like that again. He sparked the Syracuse offense in the second half scoring 16 of his 21 points. To help ignite him Adrian Autry brought in Jaquan Carlos off the bench to play point guard, putting Starling back into his accustomed shooting guard role to open up more looks. 

"It was big time," Starling said postgame. We could've easily gave up, I'm very proud of this group of guys, we just kept fighting and we didn't give in. That was the key, we didn't give in." 

Syracuse held Burton to six points in the second half. Notre Dame as a team shot 32% from the field after halftime and didn't hit a three-pointer. 

"Burton went off," Kyle Cuffe Jr., said postgame. "I was saying on the bench he had 20 [points] in 10 minutes, that's unheard of. He's a great player but being able to come back down nine, lock in and get a stop at a time really shows what we can do." 

Syracuse has now won three of their last four games and looks to take this momentum into Wednesday's road matchup against the Clemson Tigers (15-4, 7-1 ACC).