After Josh Hart’s 3 swished through the net with 11 seconds left in regulation, Syracuse and Villanova retreated to their benches.

On one end of the proverbial chess board sat SU head coach Jim Boeheim, and on the other was Villanova head coach Jay Wright. Boeheim set up an in-bounds play that had Kaleb Joseph and Trevor Cooney cross paths and forwards Rakeem Christmas and Chris McCullough stream down the sidelines as safety options.

Wright took a defender off the ball in hopes of a five-second violation, knowing that a successful entry pass would lead to free throws and most likely a possession game.

After inbounder Michael Gbinije shuffled back-and-forth on the baseline, he burned Syracuse’s final timeout and gave his team a fresh five seconds to get the ball in. But it couldn’t, and a steal by Ryan Arcidiacono led to a JayVaughn Pinkston layup that tied the game with 4.2 seconds to go.

“I don’t think it had anything to do with inexperience, we just didn’t get the ball in-bounds,” Boeheim said after Syracuse (6-4) suffered a 82-77 overtime loss to No. 7 Villanova (11-0) at the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday afternoon.

“One play. And we didn’t make the one play.”

Take away the foul differential — Syracuse finished with 27 and the Wildcats 17 — that had Christmas, McCullough and Gbinije foul out in overtime and watch the end of the contest from the bench.

Take away Pinkston and Darrun Hilliard’s 48 combined points, Joseph’s first career double-double and 18-point games from Gbinije and Christmas, all of which brought a polarized 18,369 fans to points of hysteria and hush.

Take away an overtime period that ultimately pushed Villanova five points ahead of the Orange, and you have one play. Eleven seconds that rendered the other 44:49 of game time obsolete.

“It’s something that we practice, I was making a cut to the ball and tripped and ended up on the ground,” SU guard Trevor Cooney said. “You try and just get it in, we have no timeouts left and you don’t want to give them the ball right back. You try and make a play and it’s tough, it’s a tough thing to do.”

With 20 seconds left, Syracuse got the ball into Cooney and he dribbled up the right sideline before he was fouled by Arcidiacono. He hit both free throws, but couldn’t get open before Gbinije called a timeout after Hart’s 3.

Cooney had his leg tangled in a cluster of Villanova defenders in the middle of the court and fell down. He couldn’t remember who was guarding him after the game, and Boeheim wouldn’t comment or whether or not he thought the refs missed a foul on the play.

Gbinije then tried to throw it to Christmas on the sideline but the forward couldn’t secure the pass. Pinkston then hit the game-tying layup and bullied a thinned SU frontcourt in a one-sided extra period.

The Orange came within 11 seconds and one completion from a signature win, but fell one completion short.

“The first time they got it to Cooney, which was not good,” Wright said, smiling. “Second time we did a really good job, we were really aggressive.”

Published on December 20, 2014 at 6:30 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse