The search for a fourth contributor reached B.J. Johnson on Tuesday night.

He’d been shooting well in practice and head coach Jim Boeheim turned to the sophomore forward that’s usually his last choice among Syracuse’s healthy scholarship players. In a conference play-high seven minutes, Johnson briefly showed an explosiveness that’s largely lacking from the SU offense and the holes in his defensive game that have kept him out of it.

The Orange (15-7, 6-3 Atlantic Coast) will look for Johnson to shore up his defense and further justify a place on the floor when SU visits Pittsburgh (15-8, 4-5) at 4 p.m. on Saturday — the Orange’s first game after its self-imposed postseason ban. In the thick of conference play, Syracuse continues to struggle to find someone other than Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney or Michael Gbinije to score with any consistency. They have 63.5 percent of SU’s scoring on the season.

“At this point in the year, Tyler (Roberson), Ronnie (Patterson) and Kaleb (Joseph) should be able to contribute,” Boeheim said after SU’s 72-70 win over Virginia Tech on Tuesday. “And B.J. made a nice move to the basket, and he’s been shooting the ball well all week in practice, the best he’s shot, so we decided to go with him.”

Johnson didn’t make anything from long range, going 1-for-4 from the field and missing a pair of 3s in a two-point, three-rebound performance.

Two minutes after coming into the game, though, he launched from above the right block and threw in a two-handed dunk.

At that point in the game, with 6:13 left in the first half, Christmas had six points, Cooney had nine and Gbinije had four. Including Johnson’s dunk, the rest of the team had 4.

“I think when our main three guys aren’t scoring, it’s always good for somebody else to pick up the slack,” Johnson said. “So I guess (Boeheim) needed another guy.”

Johnson also contributed on the boards, delivering his most efficient rebounding performance since a Nov. 20 loss to California, when he tallied seven rebounds in 13 minutes for 0.54 boards per minute. Against the Hokies he had 0.43.

The rebounds came in a game when the Orange couldn’t out-rebound the statistically worst team on the boards in the conference. VT and SU tied with 40 rebounds apiece.

Johnson won’t truly change Syracuse’s rotation until he starts to deliver more complete offensive performances.

“He just needs to come in and be tough and grab rebounds and make some shots, which he can do,” Cooney said. “He does it every single day in practice and all of us believe that he can do that.”

But he won’t get the chance to without improving on defense first.

Twice, he drifted too far out to the corner of the zone, allowing the Hokies an easy backdoor layup, drawing Boeheim’s frustration.

“You don’t want to know what he said,” Johnson said.

Johnson added that he thought because Virginia Tech was making so many 3s — VT shot 9-of-18 from beyond the arc — he needed to defend the arc more. The Hokies’ penetration to the high post made Johnson’s decision-making that much harder, but he said he thinks figuring it out is what stands between him and more playing time.

“Do you remember when they made those two layups on the backdoor plays?” Boeheim said. “Do you think that’s my fault?”

Published on February 5, 2015 at 12:25 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_