Syracuse again faltered late and fell to No. 6 North Carolina (15-2, 4-0 Atlantic Coast) 84-73 in the Carrier Dome on Saturday night. The Orange (10-7, 0-4) held onto an upset bid for most of the game, which was head coach Jim Boeheim’s return from a nine-game suspension.

But the result was more of the same. Here are three quick reactions from the contest.

1. Unraveling late

Fourteen seconds after allowing Justin Jackson to hit a floater out of the high post, Michael Gbinije threw away a pass and Trevor Cooney was forced to foul North Carolina’s Joel Berry.
After Berry hit two free throws, UNC’s lead stretched to nine points and the Orange was virtually out of the game.

For nearly 38 minutes, SU went punch-for-punch with one of the country’s best teams. But it couldn’t get enough stops, or avoid enough late-game mistakes, to fully compete with the Tar Heels. After Brice Johnson laid in two with 43 seconds left, fans were filing out of the Carrier Dome as he celebrated in the corner across from UNC’s bench.

With its head coach back on the bench, the same late-game issues plagued the Orange and kept it from upsetting a conference opponent it wasn’t expected to beat. The result was a fourth straight ACC loss that looked a lot like the first three.

2. Carrying (too much of) the load

Cooney walked down the sideline toward the Syracuse bench and smirked at his teammates. On offense he was dominating, one away from a season-high 19 at that point. On defense he was pestering North Carolina’s guards into errant passes and heading an all-out effort to deny passes into the paint.

A minute later, after he hit a mid-range jumper and the Tar Heels turned it over on the other end, Cooney walked the same trail along the sideline. Except now he was screaming, veins popping out of his arms and neck, and asking a sell-out crowd to pump more noise into the Carrier Dome.

Then he hit a 3 from the top of the key and the crowd one-upped his request, one collective scream filling the stadium with deafening support.

It was, by all accounts except the final scoreboard, Cooney’s night. UNC held Michael Gbinije, the Orange’s unquestioned offensive leader heading into the game, to just 10 points. Cooney responded with a season-high 27, shooting 10-for-21 from the field and 5-of-12 from 3.

But even though Cooney was the best he’s been all his season, the Orange needed more. Not from him, necessarily. But from somewhere. From Gbinije, for starters.

3. Anomaly to start

Syracuse and North Carolina each scored 33 first-half points, but neither team received a single point from its best player in the opening frame.

Gbinije went 0-for-5 from the field, all 3s, in the first 20 minutes. Tar Heels point guard Marcus Paige went scoreless shooting 0-for-4 from the field and 0-for-3 from beyond the arc. They were both, as evidenced by the halftime score, picked up by their teammates, SU riding 13 first-half points from Cooney and UNC dominating inside.

On North Carolina’s first possession of the second half, Paige swished a 3 from the corner. It took Gbinije a little longer as he made his first dent on his box score with a pair of free throws with 13:26 left in the game. Those free throws put Syracuse up 47-46 and put the entire Carrier Dome crowd on its feet.

Neither player had a particularly good game from there — Gbinije finishing with 10 points and Paige with three — but were able to one-up their first-half outputs and quarterback their teams in a tight-knit game.

Published on January 9, 2016 at 10:18 pm