Syracuse fell to No. 6 North Carolina 84-73 in the Carrier Dome on Saturday night, again faltering late after going punch-for-punch with a superior team.

Isaiah Hicks’ 21 points led a balanced offensive effort by the Tar Heels (15-2, 4-0 Atlantic Coast), who scored 46 points in the paint and looked inside to pull away from the Orange (10-7, 0-4). SU made nine of its 31 3-point attempts, and shot 56.3 percent from inside the arc in the game to give itself a fighting chance at an upset in Jim Boeheim’s return from his nine-game suspension.

In the end, it wasn’t enough. Here’s what we learned from Syracuse’s fourth straight ACC loss in as many contests.

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More Coverage:

• Trevor Cooney shines and Michael Gbinije shrinks in Syracuse’s 84-73 loss to No. 6 North Carolina
• Fast reaction: 3 takeaways from Syracuse’s 84-73 loss to North Carolina
• Syracuse falls to No. 6 UNC, 84-73, in Jim Boeheim’s return to sideline
• Grade Syracuse’s performance against UNC and vote for the player of the game
• Syracuse community reacts to loss against North Carolina

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1. Syracuse can be dominated inside without a team dominating the offensive glass

When the Orange has been bullied in the paint this season — which has been most of its games — the other team has done a lot of its damage on the offensive glass.

That wasn’t the case with the Tar Heels, who came into the game with the country’s 11th best offensive rebounding percentage according to Kenpom.com. North Carolina did score 15 second-chance points, but that was only a fraction of its 46 points in the paint. Instead of using rebounds to create scoring opportunities, UNC attacked the high post of the 2-3 zone and used interior passes to exploit SU’s thin back line.

Hicks came off the bench to lead the Tar Heels in scoring. Kennedy Meeks, returning from injury, also came off the bench and finished with eight points in 14 minutes. Brice Johnson finished with 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting and doubled his career-high with eight assists by distributing out of the high post.

In the final 8:15, the Tar Heels shot 12-of-13 from the field and made 10 field goals in the paint. SU’s inability to defend the paint was again the difference between a win and a loss, but this time it came in a different form.

“It’s going to get there, but we have to defend it once we get there,” Boeheim said of ball getting into the high post and, subsequently, the paint. And he pointed to the late defensive lapses inside to illustrate what did Syracuse in on Saturday.

2. Syracuse’s guards can be a big help on the defensive glass

As mentioned above, North Carolina didn’t give the Orange fits on the offensive glass. Actually, SU finished with four more offensive rebounds than the Tar Heels and won the rebounding battle, 35-33.

A big part of that was because Trevor Cooney and Michael Gbinije — who make up the SU backcourt and play the top of the 2-3 zone — stayed back and helped collect long rebounds. Cooney finished with five rebounds, three on the defensive end. Gbinije collected six, four on the defensive end.

In past games, the pair would sometimes break out in transition and the Orange would get burned on long rebounds it could have feasibly grabbed. A lot of the rebounds SU doesn’t get are gathered by stronger big men around the basket. But the guards can control the area 15 or so feet away from the rim, and Cooney and Gbinije made sure they did against the Tar Heels.

“We rebounded well against Pittsburgh and we did a great job tonight,” Cooney said. “Out of the 2-3 zone, it’s a lot different than man-to-man. You’re not just boxing out your one guy, you’re kind of boxing out the zone and you might have two guys in your zone.

“Mike and I, we just have to come back, and a lot of the rebounds we get might be the tipped ones or the ones the bigger guys aren’t going to get. We just have to keep coming back in and keep rebounding like we did today.”

3. Tyler Lydon is, understandably, hitting a freshman rut

Boeheim was highly critical of the freshman forward after the loss, in which Lydon scored just two points and grabbed one rebound in a season-low 23 minutes.

For most of this season, Lydon has played “starter” minutes off the bench in place of starting center Dajuan Coleman. But against the Tar Heels, Lydon was no match for UNC’s size inside and was largely unproductive.

The lanky 6-foot-8 forward made one of his four field-goal attempts and his two points were also a season-low. He was also playing on the back line of the zone for a good portion of crunch time, in which North Carolina exploited the Syracuse wings with bounce passes from the high post into the short corner.

Lydon’s been pledging to be more confident with his jump shot since conference play started, but Boeheim asserted that the first-year contributor needs time more than anything.

“He’s a freshman, he’s just trying his feel his way around. He’s just not quite ready yet, physically to do some of the things,” Boeheim said. “I think he’s doing a good job, he’s just not quite ready yet to play.”

Published on January 10, 2016 at 12:54 am