Syracuse (16-11, 8-6 Atlantic Coast) crawled out of another double-digit deficit to take a lead in the second half then again in overtime, but the Orange couldn’t hold on in a 76-72 loss to No. 8 Louisville (21-5, 9-4) on Monday night in the Carrier Dome. SU struggled mightily from 3-point range, and despite scoring the first three points of the extra period, the Orange couldn’t pull off its third straight home win over a top-10 team as Tyler Roberson missed a pair of foul shots with SU down two and 2.7 seconds left.

Here are three takeaways from Syracuse’s second straight defeat.

Deep trouble

SU entered Monday the third-best 3-point shooting team in the ACC at 39.1 percent. The Orange hardly lived up to that billing against the Cardinals, shooting a paltry 8-of-34 from behind the arc.

The player who had made almost more than twice as many 3-pointers as anyone else on the team coming into the game, Andrew White, turned in an abysmal 2-of-14 showing from long range. Everyone else combined to shoot 30 percent from behind the arc, while Louisville carded a 32-percent clip from 3-point land.

Syracuse has often delivered a crunch-time 3 to put it over the hump, especially at home, where the Orange hadn’t yet lost in conference play before Monday night. That rarely came against the Cardinals, and Syracuse suffered its 11th loss of the season.

Coming back to life

After one of his worst performances of the season in Saturday’s loss to Pittsburgh, an eight-point, three-turnover showing on 3-of-7 shooting from the field, Lydon turned in arguably the best performance on the team in Monday’s loss to the Cardinals.

He scored in a variety of ways in the first half — from beyond the arc, the low post, on follow-up dunks and from the foul line. His team-leading 11 points at the break helped Syracuse trim an early 14-point deficit to four when the first 20 minutes were up.

With Syracuse shooting 3-of-21 from deep, Lydon hit the team’s fourth 3-pointer on the night to put the Orange up, 45-43. That lead swung back to Louisville in short order when Donovan Mitchell hit a long ball of his own.

The sophomore finished with 14 points on 11 shots, also chipping in nine rebounds and four assists.

Not his usual self

White’s customary 3-pointers were hard to find in the Dome on Monday night, but the fifth-year senior still found a way to leave his mark when all was said and done. White shot only 14.3 percent from beyond the arc but still extended his streak of scoring 20 or more points to seven games.

It wasn’t only from long range that White struggled — he threw away a pass in the backcourt that led to a seamless Mitchell breakaway layup and he almost threw away a second several possessions later. The next shot SU took was a White airball from the corner.

Out of the under-four timeout, Syracuse had a chance to cut its deficit to four when White caught the ball wide open on the left wing. He hoisted up a 3-pointer, but just like 11 other times Monday night, it missed. He did hit from right in front of the Syracuse bench to trim the SU deficit to five with 36 second left in overtime, but by that time it was too late despite his 22-point showing.

Published on February 13, 2017 at 9:29 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman