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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — With one second left on the shot clock, Symir Torrence was in Prentiss Hubb’s face with his hands up. Hubb was well beyond the 3-point line as Jimmy Boeheim pointed out after the game, when he unleashed a high-arcing shot over Torrence’s outstretched arm.

The shot clock buzzer sounded, but Hubb’s 3 counted, stretching Notre Dame’s lead from five to eight with 3:34 left. Syracuse had battled back after allowing a 13-0 run midway through the second half, pulling within two points. Hubb’s shot stifled that momentum, shifting it back the other way.

“Symir’s doing a great job. He’s all up on him, and the ball almost hits the roof and it goes in. Sometimes you get bad breaks like that,” Jimmy said postgame. “For a shot like that to go in, it hurts. It hurts.”

Hubb’s 3-pointer ended Syracuse’s hopes of stealing its first Quadrant 1 win of the season, one that could’ve pushed them back toward the NCAA Tournament bubble that once seemed unreachable a few weeks ago, before the Orange won six of seven games.

Syracuse (15-13, 9-8 Atlantic Coast) couldn’t upset Notre Dame (20-8, 13-4 ACC) in South Bend, Indiana in a 79-69 loss. Initially, the back-and-forth contest didn’t allow either team to gain more than a few points of separation. SU stayed close thanks to Jimmy and Buddy Boeheim, and even when Notre Dame delivered a 13-0 run in the middle of the second half, SU answered back. But eventually, the Fighting Irish held firm down the stretch for the 10-point victory.

Before the game, Syracuse was 0-6 in Quadrant I games after the Florida State road win from December slipped to a Quadrant II win. Now, the Orange drop to 0-7 in Quadrant I and will return home to play No. 7 Duke on Saturday.

“Coming around the end of the season, I guess it’s maybe more desperation,” Jimmy said. “We needed that one. We had it right in our grasp and unfortunately it fell through.”

For the first 25 minutes, Syracuse matched Notre Dame’s offensive production with a season-high 27 points from Jimmy and another 20 from Buddy. That allowed the Orange to go bucket-for-bucket with the Fighting Irish. Every time ND got an offensive board and a putback, or hit a jumper, the Boeheims — and occasionally Cole Swider — were there.

But the problem in the first half was Notre Dame’s Paul Atkinson Jr. The forward who entered the game averaging 12.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per game reached a double-double with over two minutes remaining in the half.

Atkinson was there to tip an askew shot into the basket early on and later grabbed a strong rebound over Frank Anselem and Jimmy. He uncovered on the baseline and drew a foul from Bourama Sidibe. That pattern continued over and over again.

“He was there for every board,” Buddy said postgame. “He had a monster first half.”

Despite a crowd of Syracuse defenders reaching for the ball, Atkinson helped his team cash in on 15 second-chance points in the first half. He capitalized on a struggling Anselem, who said postgame that it took him too long to get settled and lock in on defense.

Yet Syracuse still managed to repeatedly exchange buckets with Notre Dame for most of the half. In one sequence, Buddy drove inside the arc and nailed jumpers on three straight possessions. Jimmy routinely drove and made difficult layups or hook shots look easy.

SU shot 50% from the field and 4-of-11 from 3-point range but still trailed by four points at the break because it couldn’t find a solution for Atkinson.

SU used a 9-0 run to take the lead out of halftime. But then, midway through the second half, came Notre Dame’s 13-0 run. For that brief period, Jimmy and Buddy weren’t there to rescue SU — Jimmy said the offense got stagnant and took a few bad shots that allowed Notre Dame to jump out in front.

“We didn’t score, we didn’t stop them and they had a run,” head coach Jim Boeheim said.

Joe Girard III struggled against Notre Dame, shooting just 1-for-7 and recording two points. Courtesy of Fighting Irish Media

The Orange never regained the lead after that. During that stretch, SU had four turnovers, including one from Joe Girard III where he drove into a cluster of defenders and lost the ball when he couldn’t seem to decide between a shot and a pass. Girard had an off-night, finishing with two points on 1-of-7 shooting.

During the 13-0 run, Cormac Ryan hit a 3-pointer, two free throws and a jumper. Nate Laszewski, who averages just over three 3-point attempts a game, nailed two from beyond the arc. He also had one in the first half with two seconds left on the shot clock which Boeheim pointed to one of his two keys of the game. But Laszewski’s second 3-pointer during the second-half run was the dagger that stretched Notre Dame’s lead to 12 with 12 minutes left.

“They kind of got out in transition … and they took advantage of it and went on a run,” Jimmy said. “That ultimately was the game.”

After that run, it was Syracuse fighting to stay in the game. Boeheim said Syracuse played really well on defense after allowing Atkinson to run wild in the first half. Buddy and Jimmy said Anselem played much better in the second half, and the Orange used that to fight back. They got a drive and finish from Torrence, a fast-break layup to a wide-open Sidibe and two more free throws from Sidibe when Swider intercepted an errant Notre Dame pass.

That made it a two-point game before Hubb’s 3-pointer and Blake Wesley’s layup put the game out of Syracuse’s reach. The Orange didn’t score for the last 1:30, and ND tacked on free throws to make it a 10-point victory.

“It’s a tough loss. It’s one we obviously needed, we know that,” Buddy said. “To lose like that, for them to get a five-point lead, get all the momentum, really hurt.”

Published on February 23, 2022 at 9:17 pm

Contact Roshan: [email protected] | @Roshan_f16