By the time Bryson Johnson’s fourth consecutive 3-point attempt went awry, the Bucknell guard could only shake his head in disgust as he jogged back down the court.

Four times he’d been left wide open for 3s against the Syracuse 2-3 zone defense in the first 12 minutes of the game including two from the exact same spot in the left corner but all four shots clanged off the rim.

‘The difference in the game in the first half was they had four or five wide-open shots and just missed them,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘Wide-open shots. And if they’d have made those shots, it would have been about an eight-point game at halftime, which would have been about what it should have been.’

Johnson spearheaded a dismal first-half shooting performance by the Bison, which connected on 2-of-10 attempts from long range as a team. Bucknell failed to take advantage of poor close-out defense by the Orange on Tuesday en route to a 19-point loss. Despite the misses, the Bison pointed out a flaw in the SU defense which left it susceptible to the 3-point shot.

On Thursday, No. 1 Syracuse (12-0) hosts a Tulane (11-1) team that ranks 86th in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage, meaning the Orange may not have to be wary of the Green Wave. But Thursday’s game, at 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome, is also SU’s last chance to correct the 3-point defense before facing a Seton Hall team next week that torched the Orange by nailing 10-of-17 3s in a blowout win at the Carrier Dome last season.

After the Bucknell game, Boeheim said his team’s defense wasn’t as active as it has been at times this season. The ferocity that forced 20 turnovers in a win over Florida and 19 in a win over North Carolina State last Saturday was replaced with slow rotations within the zone.

The result 12 Bucknell turnovers was by far the fewest SU has forced this season.

‘It’s always tough, you’re coming off obviously a monster game Saturday, you get home late, it’s always difficult to bounce back,’ Boeheim said. ‘And I thought given the circumstances, we did bounce back and had a real good first half. And we were helped because they missed some of those shots.’

But in the second half, Johnson and Bucknell began to heat up. As opposed to finding open looks in the corner of SU’s zone as he did in the first half, Johnson moved to the top of the key. He made consecutive 3s from out in front of the basket to trim a 23-point Syracuse lead to 17.

Michael Carter-Williams and Dion Waiters, the Orange’s two guards whom Johnson shot over top of, were taken out at the next dead ball.

Johnson struck again with 12:25 remaining in the half, and teammate Ben Brackney nailed another 3 on the next possession for the Bison to whittle SU’s advantage back to 15.

A 20-percent shooting performance in the first half was replaced with a 4-of-6 spurt to open the second half.

‘We don’t want to forget about Tulane, but we’ve got a Seton Hall team coming in that beat us here last year really pretty bad,’ SU guard Scoop Jardine said. ‘We owe them. We owe everybody in the Big East. A lot of teams shot really good against us last year, so Coach (Boeheim) is really preaching defense. … So our main focus is going into the Big East and showing everybody that we can play on both ends.’

The Green Wave come into Thursday’s game with only two legitimate threats from 3-point range. Guards Ricky Tarrant and Jordan Callahan are the only players who have made more than 10 3-pointers on the season.

Callahan leads the team with 59 attempts from long range, converting on 23 to shoot 39 percent. The junior guard has shown explosive ability at times. He’s made three 3s in four of the team’s 12 games so far.

Syracuse ranks seventh in the Big East in 3-point field goal percentage defense this season. But with teams like Pittsburgh, which shoots over 40 percent as a team, and Connecticut, which shoots 39.1 percent as a team, the Orange will need to improve quickly. Conference play begins in less than a week.

Said Jardine: ‘We can get better on the defensive end.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on December 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13