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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — All Syracuse needed to do was inbound the ball. Jim Boeheim even called a timeout to draw up a play for it. There were 15.9 seconds left in regulation, the Orange led North Carolina by one, and Buddy Boeheim had driven toward the right block before North Carolina’s Caleb Love poked the ball away, forcing the Orange to make one more pass to escape with a win. 

Jimmy Boeheim set an off-ball screen for Cole Swider, but that option didn’t open in time. “I guess Joe (Girard III) didn’t see him in time,” Boeheim said postgame. So Girard instead tossed the ball to Buddy, slicing toward the right corner, and it bounced off his knee and out of bounds. It was just like the sequence with 10 seconds left against Wake Forest on Jan. 8, only transposed from the sideline in Winston-Salem to the Dean E. Smith Center’s baseline. There was the frantic attempt at an inbounds. There was the pass that careened off Buddy’s legs and out of bounds. And there was the SU win snatched out of its grasp — this time after Love hit a deep 3 to put UNC ahead and Girard responded with a corner jumper in the final second — with a tie game that went into overtime. 

In overtime, Syracuse fell apart. The Orange only made one field goal, allowed 15 UNC points and lost 88-79 despite a career-high 36 points from Swider. A combination of porous 3-point defense, spotty rebounding and lack of offensive balance plagued them at various points throughout the game. Their third consecutive defeat became a quasi-synopsis of a season where the same mistakes keep appearing, throbbing more and more each time, until they all smashed together over the course of a full game like Monday — the latest reminder of those season-long issues remaining unsolved.

“We put ourselves in a great position with 8-10 seconds to go,” Boeheim said. “I’ll have Love taking that shot all night. We think we can win with that rather than inside. We were up one, and I was much more worried about them getting it inside and getting a layup. We forced them to take that shot. If they make it, they make it.”

From the left wing, the side opposite from where he hit the 3-pointer with seven seconds left in regulation to help force overtime in the first place, Love rose into his shot and watched it arc toward the basket. He was a step behind the line, just like that first shot set up by an out-of-bounds play turned disastrous, and this one — this dagger, as it turned out to be — materialized after Leaky Black blocked Buddy’s 3 at the other end, sparking North Carolina’s transition opportunity.

The shot put the Tar Heels up 78-73, and another 3 on their next possession put them up eight, forcing a Syracuse timeout. Even after that run, though, Swider scored four consecutive points for the Orange to pull them within six. But then he missed a 3 and committed his fifth foul after SU couldn’t steal an inbounds pass with 90 seconds left in overtime, causing him to fling both of his arms in the air. 

“I was more mad at myself for not realizing the situation,” Swider said. “I think there was two minutes left in the game, and I didn’t need to foul in that situation … So it just wasn’t a smart play.”

For the first 20 minutes, the Orange relied on Swider. He took 10 shots, made eight of them, tied his season-high of 21 points in just 20 minutes and became UNC’s primary focus. It was an outburst that came two days after he played a season-low 13 minutes against the Blue Devils because of an inability to score. He only made one basket. He committed three fouls. 

And then everything flipped two days later. Swider pulled up for a 3 after Syracuse won the tip, then added five more points before the first media timeout. After Buddy picked up a steal from near the high post, Swider connected on a mid-range jumper to give the Orange seven points in the first 70 seconds. It took until the 12:33 mark of the first half to total seven points against Duke, but Syracuse hit its first six shots and converted at a 55% clip overall in the first half.

Cole Swider carried Syracuse’s offense for much of the game before fouling out in overtime. Courtesy of Dennis Nett | syracuse.com

The Orange still trailed by five at the break, though, because North Carolina kept pace by hitting 3s. All of UNC’s baskets by the under-12 timeout came via 3s or free throws — partially due to SU eliminating the high post, partially due to North Carolina’s sharp ball movement. 

Swider’s first half built the foundation for Buddy and others to become additional focal points in the second half, though. That’s the reputation that Syracuse — for better or for worse — has built throughout the season, one where an offense based around multiple shooters can turn from one option to another in an instant. Swider led all SU scorers with 11 points again in the frame, while Buddy added nine, Sidibe and Jimmy added six and Girard chipped in five.

The Orange went small defensively in the second half as the game ebbed and flowed, but North Carolina countered by sending the ball to RJ Davis in the corner, and he connected on a 3 after Jimmy was late closing out. Minutes later, Swider fell to the ground and grabbed the back of his head with two hands as Armando Bacot’s transition layup spun around the rim and finally fell through. 

“We just aren’t able to stop anybody inside, and we have to really score and shoot the ball well, which we did for a long period of time today,” Boeheim said.

Bacot recorded another double-double, depositing 17 points and added 18 rebounds, and he tipped in a miss with three minutes left despite a trio of SU defenders surrounding him. But Swider responded again for the Orange by dishing to Frank Anselem on the roll off a screen and then hit a 3 that sank through the net.

With just over a minute left in regulation, Sidibe tipped in a missed Buddy jumper to give Syracuse a one-point lead, and two timeouts — one by each team — bridged the gap until the pivotal out-of-bounds play. Girard, who sprinted down the court before lifting a corner jumper over a UNC defender in the final two seconds, bailed the Orange out after they messed it up. For a brief moment, that injected hope that maybe Syracuse wouldn’t suffer another last-minute loss. Maybe an ending wouldn’t involve another blown lead, like others have throughout the 2021-22 season to put the Orange on the brink of finishing below .500. 

But instead, in overtime, that’s exactly what happened again.

Published on February 28, 2022 at 9:38 pm

Contact Andrew: arcrane@syr.edu | @CraneAndrew