CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Syracuse (19-11, 9-8 Atlantic Coast) hung with No. 8 North Carolina (24-6, 13-4) at the Dean E. Smith Center on Monday night, but didn’t shoot or rebound well enough to collect a win. Four players scored in double figures for Syracuse, but the Orange finished a combined 5-of-20 from 3.

Though the Orange only allowed 16 second-chance points on the 19 offensive rebounds it gave up, the ball was constantly in UNC’s hands and it prevented Syracuse from building on the momentum it was able to establish throughout the game.

SU head coach Jim Boeheim said he was proud of how his team battled, but lamented the missed shots and the poor defensive rebounding as the difference in the game.

Here are three things we learned about the Orange in the loss.

Forcing UNC into taking 3s didn’t really help

North Carolina scored just 19.6 percent of its points from behind the 3-point arc coming into the game, per Kenpom.com, which was good for 343rd in Division I. When the two teams paired up in January, SU forced the Tar Heels to shoot just 3-of-16 from 3, but UNC ran its offense through the high post and was able to dominate inside in crunch time.

The Tar Heels had taken 17 3-pointers by halftime and made six of them. Three of them immediately followed a Syracuse score. And even when North Carolina was forced to miss, the ball often found its way to a white jersey and the possession restarted.

“They made a concerted effort to get it inside, and we did a good job of keeping it from inside,” Boeheim said. “But when they shot it they got it back so many times…that was probably the difference.”

Syracuse players believe Saturday is a must-win 

Boeheim and the Orange players often shy away from talking about big-picture postseason hopes. They often go back to the oft-used “game-by-game” or “just trying to win” rhetoric. But after the loss on Monday, players weren’t shy about the importance of what Saturday’s game at Florida State means.

“It’s a must win,” Trevor Cooney said, bluntly.

“It’s big. I was just telling (the team) it’s a must win,” Gbinije said. “Every loss is going to hurt us.”

The last time SU played the Seminoles, it won an 85-72 lopsided win in the Carrier Dome on Feb. 11.

Malachi Richardson played “passive” in the first half

The freshman forward took just one shot in the first half and recorded no assists and one rebound in 17 minutes. He almost never had the ball in his hands, and didn’t do much with it when he did. He hit one 3-pointer, but didn’t look to get to the basket.

When he did so in the second half, it came with little success. He scored the only points of the opening four minutes with an and-one driving to the basket. But he also shot just 2-of-8 from the field after the break and was called for a blatant, and costly, offensive foul by shoving his defender to create space when the Orange was down three with 1:35 remaining.

“I thought in the first half he was passive,” Boeheim said. “I thought in the second half he made some drives that were close…His size hurts us at forward, rebounding situation, but next year you won’t have to worry about that.”

Published on February 29, 2016 at 11:55 pm