CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The orange-clad fans rose to their feet in the John Paul Jones Arena. They screamed exasperatedly each time Syracuse forced a turnover in their team’s backcourt and converted a layup. They had seen this movie, and they did not like the ending.

The Orange picked up one steal and then another and then another. Suddenly, a 14-point deficit had become five. SU’s win seemed unlikely, but that hardly seemed to matter to the Virginia fans stamping their feet. They had seen their team fall victim to seemingly impossible ways to lose before, when the Orange surmounted two large, second-half deficits in the 2016 Elite Eight and last season for Boeheim’s 1000th* win.

With 15 seconds to go, Syracuse pressed again and Virginia’s Devon Hall dribbled it out of bounds. The referees awarded possession to Syracuse. After a video review, they saw the ball first went off Syracuse point guard Frank Howard’s foot.

“That was supposed to be a turnover,” Syracuse freshman forward Oshae Brissett said.

The referee didn’t see it the same way, and the crowd cheered the loudest it had all night.

Syracuse (12-5, 1-3 Atlantic Coast) went cold in the second half, which delayed springing the press on No. 3 Virginia (15-1, 4-0) and ultimately meant there wasn’t enough time to make up the deficit in its 68-61 loss on Tuesday night. The Orange was also unable to utilize Paschal Chukwu’s career-high 15 boards, which contributed to a 41-31 advantage overall, and convert them into enough buckets to make up for Virginia’s hot hands in the second half.

“When you’re playing six guys, it’s hard to press a lot,” Boeheim said. “Generally, they’re good against pressure. The first try, they got a dunk. … Pressure can work in short situations with our team.”

Virginia head coach Tony Bennett kept Boeheim at arm’s length because he had prepared for exactly that situation. He knew the press was coming. Before this game, he reviewed Syracuse’s Dec. 22 loss to St. Bonaventure, when the Orange’s pressure forced the Bonnies into turnovers that keyed overtime, and had his first-team offense scrimmage a six-player defense to simulate the pressure they would feel.

The preparation still seemed not to matter. When the Orange finally did get to the press, the returns still arrived quickly. Virginia turned the ball over on three straight possessions and a Frank Howard 3-pointer paired with a Chukwu putback and Brissett layup to cut the lead down.

“Coach always says (we’ll only press) when we really need it, not just anytime, because that would get us tired,” Brissett said. “(The press) helped us out a lot, so we’re going to keep working on it and get better with that.”

The scheme may have worked if Syracuse had more time, but the Orange could never slice the lead small enough to let Boeheim feel comfortable using it because the Orange’s shots stopped falling in the second half.

“Our scoring slowed down,” Battle said. “We went a little cold in the second half, which was the problem.”

In the first half, Howard nailed his first three attempts from 3 and keyed Syracuse’s 44.4 percent from that range in the first 20 minutes. In the second half, he missed 4-of-5 and shot 16.7 percent from beyond the arc overall. Syracuse seemed to get similar penetration as before, but shots clanked off the rim.

On defense, Virginia exploited Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense by stretching it with three shooters around the arc: Ty Jerome at the top paired with marksmen Kyle Guy and Devon Hall in the corners. As the Orange’s outside defensive anchors — mostly Oshae Brissett and Matthew Moyer or Marek Dolezaj — pushed further from the paint to contest those shooters, the center, usually Paschal Chukwu, was left in space inside to either push up on the high post or play help defense on dribble drives.

In lieu of open outside looks, the Cavs favored going inside to the high post because it stretched Chukwu’s range. Then, when Chukwu wised up to Virginia forward De’Andre Hunter’s penchant for shooting at the high-post, he stepped up to stop Hunter. But then UVA rotated other players through the high-post who distributed more, which became effective when the Cavs heated up from beyond the arc in the second half. UVA guard Ty Jerome missed his first three 3-point attempts and then hit the next one and the next one and the next one.

“We played back on Ty Jerome a little bit and protected the high post more,” Battle said. “Then he hit a couple 3s and we had to play up on him.”

Jerome heating up warmed Kyle Guy and Devon Hall, who contributed triples of their own, and the Orange could not keep up as UVA exploited the newfound space. Though the Orange maintained its advantage on the boards, it struggled to get to the line. Syracuse hit 2s, Virginia hit 3s.

When Hunter shot-faked and drove past Chukwu for a lay-up with 6:18 to go, it was the first 2-pointer the Cavaliers had made the entire half.

Each time UVA tried to fully separate itself from SU, the Orange tugged back with its dominance on the boards. Not a minute after Chukwu got tangled up on a Battle drive and seemed to hurt his left knee, he returned to the game for a putback on a missed Battle layup.

When Battle fouled out with just more than a minute to play, UVA had stretched its lead to double-digits for the second time all game. Now, Boeheim had no choice left and he deployed the press.

This time, though, there was no second-half comeback magic. It was too late.

Published on January 9, 2018 at 11:36 pm

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR