• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

Fair leads Syracuse to win over Baylor, Maui title

Nov 28, 2013 - 8:02 AM Maui, HI (SportsNetwork.com) - C.J. Fair had 24 points and the eighth-ranked Syracuse Orange defeated the 18th-ranked Baylor Bears 74-67 to capture their third Maui Invitational title.

Jerami Grant added 19 points for the Orange (7-0), who also won this tournament in 1990 and 1998. Trevor Cooney and Tyler Ennis both tallied 11 points.

"I've retired from Maui; that's what I will tell you," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "I'm very happy to go into the sunset. The next time I come to Maui, I'll have my golf clubs. I did not have this time. But I'm going to go outside tomorrow morning on the beach for the first time."

Cory Jefferson ended with 15 points and eight rebounds for the Bears (6-1), who had an 11-game winning streak snapped. Kenny Chery and Brady Heslip both had 12 points.

"There's always room for improvement," Jefferson said. "Win or lose, no matter what happens, we just need to go back and watch film of the game over this whole tournament, and the things that we did wrong, go back and improve them. I think one of the greatest things about this team is we adjust pretty well."

The Orange jumped out to a 12-4 lead, but the Bears responded with a 12-2 run. Royce O'Neale, Chery and Heslip combined to make four 3-pointers during the surge that gave Baylor a 16-14 edge.

Syracuse quickly regained the momentum with an 8-0 spurt. Grant tallied six points during the flurry, including a jumper with 11:04 left to make it a 22-16 contest.

The margin reached 13, 33-20, on Rakeem Christmas' three-point play with 7:16 remaining. The Orange took a 38-30 lead into the locker room.

Baylor made a run midway through the second half. Trailing 54-40 with 11 1/2 minutes to play, the Bears put together a 12-2 spurt. Jefferson's tip-in cut the gap to 56-52.

Syracuse responded with a 10-0 run. Grant recorded a pair of three-point plays during the surge that Ennis capped with a layup for a 66-52 margin.

The Bears never got closer than five the rest of the way.

Game Notes

Baylor and Syracuse had met just once before, with the Orange coming away with a 94-71 win in December of 2006 in the Carrier Dome ... The Bears shot 55.3 percent from the field and went 9-of-19 from beyond the arc ... Syracuse shot 50.8 percent from the floor and went 10-of-11 from the foul line ... Baylor turned the ball over 20 times.