Syracuse needed a road win in the most desperate way. The Orange had lost at the Barclays Center. At Madison Square Garden. In Chestnut Hill. In Blacksburg. In Chapel Hill. And in South Bend.

Going against an average NC State team, Syracuse needed a win in Raleigh in the worst way. And behind an all-time performance from John Gillon, who picked up where he left off against FSU, the Orange got the win they needed.

Syracuse wasn’t great the entire game, in fact the Orange was down 16 points when I sent this tweet. Then a crazy run in the second half of the second half, powered by Gillon and his three point sharp shooting, the Orange got back into the game.

Think about how difficult it is to win on the road in the ACC, it took 43 points from John Gillon, plus another 28 from Andrew White. Those are both Herculean efforts, and it still took overtime for the Orange to get a road win in the ACC.

Syracuse played a complete game, we saw good all-around efforts from Gillon and White, in addition to Tyler Lydon. Taurean Thompson played defense well enough to warrant his staying on the court offensively.

For now, it keeps the Orange’s faint Tournament hopes alive. Adding a road win to a barren resume that has plenty of opportunities to improve. But that road continues and gets tougher on Saturday as a top-10 Virginia team comes to the Dome.

Syracuse needs to win the winnable games left, like Wednesday night’s game at NC State. That means going on the road next week and beating Clemson and Pittsburgh. It means winning another game or two against a ranked team at home, and maybe a game or two at the ACC Tournament.

But for one night, at least you can look and say that Syracuse got the job done and did something that it hadn’t done so far this season.