SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Before Tuesday night's game, Monmouth Hawks coach and Binghamton, N.Y., native King Rice said he was "really, really nervous" because his friends in upstate New York were saying that Syracuse Orange coach Jim Boeheim had assembled one of the best teams of his 41-year Hall-of-Fame career.

Rice's friends may be right. Andrew White scored all of his game-high 18 points in the first half and Syracuse's 2-3 zone stifled Monmouth in the second half as the 18th-ranked Orange thumped the Hawks 71-50 Friday night in a Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational game before 22,636 fans at the Carrier Dome. The five-team, round-robin tournament also includes South Carolina, South Carolina State and Holy Cross.

Freshmen Taurean Thompson (12 points) and Tyus Battle (nine) combined for 21 points and point guard Frank Howard added eight points and six assists for the Atlantic Coast Conference-member Orange (3-0).

"They've had great teams for a long, long, long, long time. This one right here has the potential to be one of the best ones," Rice said. "Did we tonight face the best Syracuse team ever? I don't think yet. But this is a really good one that's going to be (better) by the end of the year."

Thompson, a 6-foot-10 forward, limped off the floor with the help of teammates after getting knocked to the ground while making a layup with 2:09 remaining. Boeheim said immediately after the game that Thompson was "walking on" his wobbly left leg, but he didn't know the extent of the injury.

Guard Justin Robinson led the Hawks (1-2) with 11 points as he reached double figures for the 55th time in 61 games. Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference-member Monmouth, which has lost consecutive games for the first time since February 2015, shot 31.3 percent (20-of-64) and 13.8 percent (4-for-29) from beyond the arc. Syracuse held Monmouth to 8-for-38 shooting in the second half (21.1 percent).

"They got some looks that they missed but our defense was pretty good (in the second half)," Boeheim said. "We were pushing them off spots and making them take tough shots."

Monmouth tied the score four times in the first half, but Syracuse never relinquished the lead and led 37-29 at intermission. After Micah Seaborn's 3-pointer tied the score at 20, White answered with back-to-back 3-pointers. Battle's 3-pointer and White's two free throws at the end of the half enabled the Orange to maintain its eight-point advantage.

"The first half, we really did a good job getting Andrew the ball and he was our offense; he kept us in there," Boeheim said. "We were struggling a little bit offensively but he made some big shots and got us some separation."

White, a fifth-year graduate senior transfer from Nebraska, said the Orange was wary of the Hawks after their magical 2015-16 season, when the Hawks won 28 games and knocked off then-No. 17 Notre Dame, USC, Georgetown, UCLA and Rutgers.

"That gives me a wakeup call," White said. "A lot of guys feel it won't be them, and then it happens. Our goal is to win every game. I think you're seeing a lot of good teams across the country and that shows you there are no guaranteed games in this era."

The Orange scored the first six points of the second half to build a 43-29 lead. While Syracuse slowed down offensively, the Hawks made just three of their first 20 field-goal attempts in the second half and never got closer than 10 as the Orange steadily pulled away with Thompson and Battle leading the offense.

"Andrew carried us offensively in the first half. That opened us offensively in the second half because they had to worry about him and it got us easy shots," Battle said. "That's how it goes sometimes; we're a really deep team with a lot of guys and anyone cane lead us on any day."

In their only previous meeting, Syracuse routed Monmouth 108-56 in 2012. Rice said losing by only 21 this time shows improvement, and he was also happy for the opportunity to coach against Boeheim.

"It was an honor for me, because I used to sit in the blue seats in the back and watch it from a different angle," he said. "So it's an honor for me to be able to say I got to coach against Coach Boeheim in the Dome is probably my biggest thrill as a coach."

NOTES: On the recruiting front, Syracuse lost 6-10 F Billy Preston to Kansas Friday but remains in the running for five-star G Quade Green, who has reportedly narrowed his decision to Kentucky or Syracuse and will make his announcement Saturday. Several media outlets are reporting that Green has picked Kentucky. ... Another player who got away from the Orange was Monmouth coach Rice, who chose North Carolina over Syracuse in the late 1980s because the Orange already had Sherman Douglas at point guard. ... Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who turned 72 Thursday, is 12 wins away from 1,000 in his career, although 101 of those wins were vacated because of NCAA violations.