Trevor Cooney was out of celebrations.

In a game he was dominating from beyond the arc, the junior shooting guard had already left his follow-through in the air, swung a clenched fist in front of his face and pumped his chest three times — all subtle gloats after nailing 3-pointers in the first half on Sunday night.

But when SU’s lead shrunk to nine points with five minutes left in the game, Cooney’s rejoice looked more like relief after he rattled in a 3 as the shot clock dwindled.

He hung his head behind — almost doubling over backward — and took three haggard steps toward the defensive end. And only when he reached the Syracuse logo at midcourt did Cooney lift his head and let out an exuberant scream.

“I wasn’t doing anything different,” Cooney said. “They just went in.”

On a night when freshman forward Chris McCullough left in the first half with an injury and Rakeem Christmas picked up his fourth foul with 8:03 left to play, Cooney was at the center of the Orange’s best 3-point shooting performance of the season and led SU (12-4, 3-0 Atlantic Coast) to a 70-57 win over the Seminoles (9-7, 1-2) in front of 24,257 in the Carrier Dome.

Cooney scored a game- and season-high 28 points, shooting 7-of-11 from deep while Syracuse made 10-of-17 as a team. The Seminoles shot a woeful 2-of-16 from 3, which was the ultimate difference in the game.

“Sometimes you get in a zone and he was definitely in that zone,” FSU head coach Leonard Hamilton said of Cooney. “I thought the first 3 that he hit, I thought he was defended about as well as a guy can be defended.

“Sometimes great shooters will do that, the basket looks bigger to them. Tonight he probably could have thrown it into a smaller basket because it looked a little bigger.”

After McCullough hobbled to the locker room with 11:51 left in the first, Cooney lifted the crowd out of a lull with a 3 from the left wing. Three minutes later, Cooney drifted to the same spot and clanged in another triple off a pass from Ron Patterson.

He then drew the full attention of the Florida State defense out of the under-eight timeout, as three Seminoles followed Cooney off an off-ball screen leaving Patterson wide open on the other side of the court.

Patterson nailed the shot to give the Orange an early 26-12 lead. With McCullough out and Christmas struggling early on, Cooney’s 14 points helped SU build a 35-22 halftime lead. He was the only player, on either team, with more than seven points heading into the break.

“Trevor got a hot hand and then he made some good plays off the dribble,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said, “which is the biggest part of the improvement in his game this year.”

After bullying the Seminoles from deep all night, Cooney caught a pass three steps behind the 3-point line as the shot clock dipped below 10 seconds. The Orange held a 10-point lead but Xavier Rathan-Mayes had just hit a 3, Christmas sat on the bench with four fouls and momentum was swinging in the visitors’ favor.

But instead of looking for another 3, Cooney put the ball on the deck, squeezed through a double team and glided to the rim for a layup.

The next time the shot clock wound down on SU, it was Cooney hitting a top-of-the-arc 3 that sent the crowd into euphoria. When it happened a third time, the SU student section counted down from 10 while a Cooney pump fake saw an FSU defender fly by him into the backcourt.

He now stood alone on the left wing after the Seminoles had hounded him all night. He canned the 3 and any chance of a Florida State comeback. Then he flew down the court with his arms outstretched like an airplane — one more celebration for good measure.

“I thought Trevor was great tonight and he really just is at his best when he is being a player, not just a shooter,” SU assistant coach Mike Hopkins said. “He was like the good-looking girl on the court. Wherever he moved 10 Florida State eyes moved with him, trying to stop him.”

And on Sunday, 10 Florida State eyes were never enough.

Published on January 11, 2015 at 10:04 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse