ST. LOUIS — When his fourth straight missed free throw rolled off the rim and fell out, Tyler Lydon turned away from the basket and made it two steps toward halfcourt.

Face red, cheeks puffed out, Lydon drew a big breath while staring at nothing in particular. He later guessed he hadn’t missed four straight at the line since the sixth grade. But before he could walk even farther away from his fifth attempt, Trevor Cooney briskly jogged from the bench and told him to step back up to the line.

“I don’t know if it can be repeated,” Cooney said of what he yelled to Lydon. “I mean it happens. He just kept looking back and it made me mad. I just wanted him to make the next foul shot and not worry about just missing that one foul shot. Just stay on the line and make the next shot.”

That’s what Lydon did, and the rest of the freshman’s performance only led to frustration for Middle Tennessee State. He finished with 14 points, seven rebounds and a career-high six blocks as the Orange (21-13, 9-9 Atlantic Coat) rolled the Blue Raiders, 75-50, at the Scottrade Center on Sunday to advance to the Sweet 16. MTSU favored a switch-everything, man-to-man that often gave SU a size advantage inside, and Lydon helped exploit that while using his 6-foot-8 frame to protect the rim on the other end.

An uncharacteristic 6-for-10 night at the line was the only blemish on his performance. And in the end it was hardly a blemish at all.

“He’s a lottery pick in time. He’s something, he’s something,” MTSU head coach Kermit Davis said after the game. “… I thought he competed hard today. I mean, he rebounded it and was just really hard to score over.”

Playing in the center spot early on, Lydon was often left alone to defend relentless penetration by the Blue Raiders. Middle Tennessee State came into the contest as the 14th-best 3-point-shooting team in the country, and the SU zone aggressively extended accordingly. That forced MTSU to go off the dribble, and Lydon held his own inside without much help defense from the wings.

But Boeheim thought he was especially effective on defense when paired with center Dajuan Coleman, which allowed him to swoop in from the weak side for blocks and rebounds. Right after completing a 3-point play, Lydon backtracked on defense and hung in the air before swatting a Perrin Buford layup attempt out of bounds. And after MTSU inbounded the ball moments later, he ranged over to the left block and pinned Reggie Upshaw against the backboard before collecting the loose ball.

“Getting a good block always feels good,” Lydon said. “A big 3 is probably a better feeling than a big block, but a big block is always a lot of fun to look back and watch it.”

With Lydon anchoring the interior defense for 34 minutes — his final plus-minus was a team-high plus-28 — the Blue Raiders shot a bleak 11-of-40 from inside the arc. Lydon also became just the 20th player since 2010 to finish with six or more blocks in an NCAA Tournament game.

If he was feeling any jitters in his first run through March Madness, it only showed at the foul line.

“It was really weird,” Lydon said. “I was telling Trevor, ‘They all feel good, I don’t know what else to change.’”

As it turned out, he didn’t need to change a thing. Whatever he did from that fourth missed free throw on forward was more than enough.

Published on March 20, 2016 at 11:21 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse