Syracuse Falls Just Short in Overtime Loss at North Carolina

Syracuse had a one point lead and the ball with under 20 seconds left, but a miscue on the out of bounds play ultimately led to overtime which North Carolina dominated. The Tar Heels beat the Orange 88-79 despite 36 points from Cole Swider. Syracuse drops to 15-15 (9-10) on the season. The regular season finale is on Saturday when Syracuse hosts Miami.

In a back and forth game, Syracuse seemed to be making the plays down the stretch to pull off the road upset. The Orange had the ball up by one with 16 seconds left. After head coach Jim Boeheim called timeout to set a play, Joe Girard inbounded the ball to Buddy Boeheim. The pass was right at Buddy's feet and bounced off his foot out of bounds.

"Tried to get Buddy out," coach Boeheim said. "Slip Bourama and try to get Buddy out. Cole came up top, I guess Joe didn't see him. Four seconds, it's going to be hard, probably, to get a real good shot anyway. In some ways, by going out of bounds we were able to get back and set our defense up. That's the good part of it. But Joe didn't see Cole. We had a timeout. He asked me in the huddle, 'we had one, we had one.' I thought he'd take it if he didn't think he had something. That was the play."

Moments later, Caleb Love, who had struggled shooting all night, hit a long three to give the Tar Heels a two point lead.

"Eight, 10 seconds to go, I'll have Love taking that shot all night," Boeheim said. "We think we can win with that rather than the inside. We're up one, I was much more worried about them getting it inside and getting a layup. We forced them to try to take that shot and if they make it they make it."

Girard raced down the other end and hit a jumper with one second left to send it into overtime. In the extra session, Love stayed hot and the Orange offense stalled, leading to UNC's victory.

Cole Swider led all scorers with 36 points on 14-21 shooting including 7-11 from three. He was sensational offensively all night. Buddy Boeheim had 14 points and seven rebounds.

Brady Manek had 22 points for North Carolina, while Armando Bacot had 17 points and 18 rebounds. RJ Davis hit five threes for UNC.

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