With a sweeping declaration, Jim Boeheim injected flare into a team that lacked it. A dozen 3-pointers set as the desired minimum. No postseason last year, little expectations this one. With NCAA investigations still at the forefront of Syracuse basketball, a 3-point-savvy approach gave it a respite from everything else.

In two exhibition games, Syracuse made 26-of-61 shots from beyond the arc. An astronomical number of makes and takes over a two-game stretch compared to last season, even for scrimmages. In the early going, Boeheim said the Orange would live and die by the long ball.

SU has benefited from the 3 (shooting 11-of-23 in a two-point win against Duke) and suffered from the 3 (shooting 5-of-26 in a 12-point loss to St. John’s). The Orange has also lost to Clemson and Virginia despite making 13 deep balls in each game. But in Saturday’s 60-57 win against Georgia Tech, a team Boeheim called one of the better ones in the league, Syracuse (15-8, 5-5 Atlantic Coast) made only six 3s and showed dimensions it hadn’t before.

“Tonight wasn’t necessarily about hitting 3s,” Tyler Lydon said after Saturday’s win. “It was more on the defensive end and just getting to the basket.”

 

Nine times this season Syracuse has made fewer than 10 3s against a Power 5 opponent. Only three of those have been wins, one Saturday, one against Boston College — who sits 0-8 in the ACC — and one against Connecticut in a game Syracuse made a season-high 24 free throws.

The Orange escaped against Georgia Tech because of late free throws, but only made half the total it had against the Huskies. SU was also facing an opponent, unlike the Eagles, whose five conference losses had come by an average of just 5.2 points per game. Syracuse’s early-season identity faded as the game lagged down the stretch Saturday and the Orange was tasked with dipping to the depths of an arsenal it had rarely explored through 22 games.

“You have to play defense in a zone,” Boeheim said. “It’s not some freakin’ magic trick here.”

Georgia Tech’s previous lowest point total in conference play was 64. Syracuse reset that to 57, almost 20 points below the Yellow Jackets’ season average and only the seventh time SU has allowed fewer than 60 points in 23 games. The Orange held GT to a field-goal percentage 7 percent lower than its season average and a 3-point clip 9 percent lower than its season average.

On top of a stout defensive effort, Syracuse shot 46.9 percent from 2-point range while it took its fourth-fewest amount of 3s on the season. In the final 10:26, Syracuse restricted Georgia Tech to 10 points while only one 3-pointer accounted for a sliver of SU’s final 13 points.

“It wasn’t falling for us so we were able to get in the lane and make plays and make things happen,” Trevor Cooney said. “But I mean our defense picked up, we knew we weren’t making shots so we had to get stops.”

Georgia Tech struggled to pound Syracuse’s thin backline via passes through the top of the zone like opponents have so often done. Gbinije cut off bounce passes headed to the middle of the paint. Dajuan Coleman neutralized the ACC’s best rebounder in Georgia Tech’s Charles Mitchell. Malachi Richardson and Gbinije, two of SU’s best 3-point shooters, put a seal on the game from the foul line.

It wasn’t the conventional Syracuse that has come to rely on the deep ball from a guard-heavy lineup, even as Boeheim played four of them for part of the final five minutes.

It was, however, a Syracuse that flashed dimensions on both ends that it hadn’t before.

“If we do those things,” Gbinije said, “making shots is just going to be a plus for us.”

Matt Schneidman is the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at mcschnei@syr.edu or @matt_schneidman

Published on January 31, 2016 at 9:25 pm