As Malachi Richardson dribbled down the left side of the court, Trevor Cooney jumped up and down with his arms straight above his head.

Boston College was scrambling to get back on defense and there wasn’t a defender on Cooney’s side of the court, let alone in position to guard his jump shot. But Richardson dropped his head and drove toward the rim instead of skipping a pass to the wide-open sharpshooter. He drew a foul and made two free throws after a timeout That sequence was a microcosm of Syracuse’s best offense on Wednesday night.

The Orange (11-7, 1-4 Atlantic Coast), so committed to the 3-point shot for most of this up-and-down season, was most effective when attacking the rim against the Eagles. The result was a 62-40 win over Boston College (7-9, 0-3) in the Carrier Dome, which snapped SU’s first four-game losing streak since 2011 and got it out of the cellar of the ACC.

It wasn’t all pretty for Syracuse, which shot just 4-of-17 from 3 and committed 14 turnovers. But the most important numbers were on the final scoreboard, even if the win came against a lowly BC team in front of a thin crowd.

“We got the monkey off our back now,” SU point guard Michael Gbinije said. “We just need to play like we did this past game.”

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Syracuse made just 2-of-10 3s in the first half, and held a three-point lead after 12 minutes and 11 seconds. To that point, each side had seven turnovers. They were a combined 3-for-12 from deep. The Eagles had eight team fouls, and despite a consistent effort to work the ball inside had zero points in the paint because of 7-foot center Dennis Clifford’s inability to finish.

But then Syracuse polished off a 21-4 run to go into halftime with a 30-15 lead. The Orange turned up the intensity on the defense end and held the Eagles scoreless for seven minutes and 28 seconds. Gbinije went into the break with 12 points — the only player in double-figures to that point — and Tyler Roberson had seven points and 10 rebounds.

BC trimmed the Orange’s lead to seven with 13:50 left in the game, and SU head coach Jim Boeheim called a timeout. Out of the timeout, Syracuse attacked the rim at every opportunity and gradually stretched its lead to the finish.

“We wanted to get in the lane a little bit and get to the basket area,” Boeheim said. “But we’re going to shoot 3s if they’re there, if they’re open. They were all open, they were all pretty good looks tonight.”

On Wednesday, Syracuse didn’t need those 3s in order to sidestep unwanted program history.

When the Orange fell to 0-4 in ACC play with an 84-73 loss to then-No. 6 North Carolina on Saturday, it matched the worst start to conference play set in 1997. The win over the Eagles helped SU avoid the first five-game losing streak in Boeheim’s 40-year career, which would have been its worst-ever start to a conference season.

Next SU will travel to North Carolina for a date with Wake Forest on Saturday and Duke on Monday. After that is a road test against a Virginia team that is 8-0 at home this season. Those are games in which the defense will be tested inside, the missed 3s will add up and turnovers will be the difference between victory and defeat.

It made beating Boston College that much more important, and Syracuse didn’t take that lightly.

“Going forward, we need to have the same mindset, almost like the playoffs,” Cooney said. “You need every single win, and you have to treat it like that, and every game counts. We know that. We dug ourselves into a pretty big hole and moving forward every game has to be like that.”

Published on January 13, 2016 at 9:08 pm

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