It’s taken most of the season for Tyler Roberson to find a confident shooting rhythm, but too much confidence quickly landed him on the bench on Wednesday night.

Roberson flashed into the high post and, with Louisville’s Montrezl Harrell in his face, shot an off-balance jumper that hit the left side of the rim and bounced out. A second later, Roberson jogged off the court while B.J. Johnson jogged on.

“He’s trying to hit that jump shot. He can’t make that jump shot yet,” Jim Boeheim said after Syracuse’s 69-59 win over the Cardinals. “He’s got to go to the basket and the other thing he can do because nobody is there is that he can go right into a ball screen and now no one is there to help.”

The junior forward re-entered the game three minutes later and, with a retooled offensive approach, never subbed out again. Instead of looking for his jump shot in the middle of Louisville’s matchup zone, Roberson facilitated Syracuse’s shooters, dumped to Rakeem Christmas in the post, set on- and off-ball screens and attacked the basket when given enough space. And even though he was looking for his teammates rather than his jumper, Roberson finished with 13 points and nine rebounds to help compensate for Trevor Cooney’s 1-for-10 shooting night.

SU (17-9, 8-5 Atlantic Coast) now hosts Pittsburgh (17-10, 6-7) at noon on Saturday and since the Panthers dropped into a 2-3 zone the first time these teams met, Roberson’s high-post play will once again factor heavily into the Orange’s offensive success.

“When I was catching it I would look to attack and then off of that the defense would try and collapse so I would set a screen,” Roberson said after the Louisville game. “It was ball movement, they were in the matchup zone so if you move the ball, you’ll get open shots.”

With Cooney off his mark and the matchup zone switching on every pick the Orange set for Michael Gbinije, Roberson was the best bet to free up Christmas inside. And because the forward has struggled with his mid-range jumper, he did that by setting screens and finding the spots that would give him good passing angles to the big man.

After missing two jump shots at the start of the game, Roberson took the rest of his shots in right outside of the paint. He went 4-for-5 to finish his night and also shot 5-of-8 from the line, and wasn’t the only player that benefited from his refocused mindset.

Christmas scored 29 points, shooting 9-of-10 from the field and 11-of-13 from the line. On Feb. 7, when Pittsburgh beat Syracuse 83-77, the Panthers played zone for a stretch of the second half and closed down passing lanes to the post.

In that game, Gbinije hit two 3s that forced the Panthers out of the packed-in zone. This time Roberson can help alleviate the pressure on Christmas.

“Tyler’s huge because he’s a threat in there. It forces the defense to play out on him and it stops them from double-teaming Rakeem,” SU point guard Kaleb Joseph said after the Louisville game. “I think it’s a huge reason why Rak had such a great game.”

Published on February 20, 2015 at 12:10 am

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse