Wherever Trevor Cooney went in the second half, Codi Miller-McIntyre was shadowing him step for step.

After a hot start on the heels of a 28-point performance against Florida State on Sunday, Cooney couldn’t move freely let alone find enough space to get a jumper off. But after pulling Syracuse within one with 4:32 left in regulation, he made his own space.

The junior caught the ball on the right wing with the shot clock winding down and, after dribbling around a Tyler Roberson screen, faded toward the Orange bench before unleashing a prayer.

A split second later, Wake Forest was pulling the ball out of the bottom of the net, the Carrier Dome crowd was in ecstasy and the game was tied.

“Thank God that went in,” Cooney said. “It was a good move, created some space and I was able to get it off and it went in.”

At that moment — given the time, angle and improbability of the attempt — Cooney’s 3 was the biggest shot in a game that Syracuse (13-4, 4-0 Atlantic Coast) needed overtime to win in the Carrier Dome on Tuesday night. The Orange edged the Demon Deacons (9-9, 1-4) 86-83, and it was Cooney who paced SU with 13 first-half points to open up opportunities for Rakeem Christmas and his career-high 35.

Cooney spaced the floor with five 3s and demanded attention as his teammates — notably Christmas and forward Michael Gbinije — thrived down the stretch.

“I thought Trevor played better than that, than his numbers,” SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. “But he hit a couple monster ones for us so we’ll forgive him for that.”

Shooting 6-for-17 from the field and 5-for-12 from 3 isn’t the clip Cooney wants to be at, but his team needed every one of his 21 points.

Since scoring just two points in the Orange’s 69-57 loss to St. John’s on Dec. 6, Cooney has scored more than 15 points in seven of nine games. He’s also scored more than 20 in four of those contests, including SU’s last two wins in which he’s netted a combined 49 on 12 3s.

He was blanketed by a quicker defender in the second half of Syracuse’s latest conference nail-biter, but that didn’t mean he was at all absent from it.

“I mean, they’re just going in,” Cooney said of his recent shooting success. “There’s no button you can hit to make them magically go in. I’m taking good shots and they’re just going in.”

Published on January 14, 2015 at 12:49 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse