Syracuse (10-6, 0-3 Atlantic Coast) has dropped its first three games in conference play for the first time since the 1996-97 season. Its 74-73 overtime loss to Clemson (9-6, 2-1) on Tuesday night in the Carrier Dome was the latest, a game the Orange led by four with under a minute remaining.

Shortly after the loss, Jim Boeheim officially returned as head coach and Mike Hopkins reverted to the role he’s served in for 20 years. As Hopkins prefers, Syracuse basketball is back to normalcy. But the Orange sits in the depths of the ACC with No. 6 North Carolina up next. Here are three things we learned from Tuesday’s loss.

Michael Gbinije can still score at an All-ACC level

The fifth-year senior scored a somewhat quiet 22 points to lead Syracuse in the loss. Freshman Malachi Richardson led the charge down the stretch, but it was Gbinije with 11 second-half points on 3-of-7 shooting. He added two 3-pointers, one of which gave the Orange its first lead in over 25 minutes, and a trio of foul shots in the second half.

Against Miami, Gbinije scored a season-low 10 points and complained about the officiating after the game. But just four days after being flustered by Miami’s Angel Rodriguez, Gbinije bested his season average against Jordan Roper and the Tigers.

“Mike Gbinije … iron man,” Hopkins said. “The guy is a stud. If your ripped him open, it would be like iron coming out of him.”

He elevated his scoring average back up to 18 points per game, which ranks third in the ACC. In the process, he restored the offensive prowess that defined him before laying an egg, by his standards, against the Hurricanes.

Syracuse can defend the inside, to an extent

In the first half, Clemson pounded the ball inside to Landry Nnoko and Sidy Djitte. Often it was a quick turn and hook shot against a Syracuse big, either Dajuan Coleman or Tyler Lydon, that did little to push back.

In the second half, Lydon forced whichever Clemson center was playing out of the paint, and the ball around the perimeter. The Tigers swung it around the key before slicing up the zone at times, a method still effective but one that just took longer.

Syracuse was able to defend the paint more effectively earlier in the clock and force the visitors to create from the outside in instead of the other way around. It taxed the Clemson offense more and allowed Syracuse to crawl back in the game, but SU was still dissected and outscored 40-18 in the paint. Against North Carolina, a team with Kennedy Meeks and Brice Johnson down low, it’ll only get harder.

“Our best offensive lineup is when Tyler Lydon’s in at the five,” Hopkins said, “… and it was able to open up some things but there’s the give and take and they did a really good job of trying to get in there … (Lydon’s) a light heavyweight fighting heavyweight.”

Foul shooting is still an issue, this time late

Syracuse’s season average from the charity stripe is just over 67 percent, so a 10-of-15 mark in the second half isn’t staggering. But on Tuesday, its misses were magnified coming late in the second half. The most glaring one, Richardson’s only miss of his six second-half foul shots with 18 seconds left, kept the game within one possession and allowed Clemson to tie and force overtime.

The freshman took the blame for the loss, saying that if he made the back end of his one-and-one that Syracuse would’ve won the game. Each of the four players who took foul shots on Tuesday missed at least one, though, and Syracuse logged an underwhelming 12-for-19 mark from the foul line compared to Clemson’s 10-of-11 total.

The Orange sits third-to-last in the ACC in free-throw percentage and three of its next four games come against teams in the top half of the conference in that category.

Published on January 6, 2016 at 1:34 am