2024-01-12 13:30:00
Syracuse, N.Y. ― Since leaving the Big East and joining the ACC in 2014, the Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team has won in every arena in the conference … except for one.
Syracuse has won at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium, Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena and Pittsburgh’s Petersen Events Center. Syracuse even won a game at Maryland before the Terrapins bolted for the Big Ten.
But the Orange has yet to notch a win over the North Carolina Tar Heels inside the Dean E. Smith Center; aka, the Dean Dome.
Syracuse (11-4 overall, 2-2 ACC) will try get another chance to beat North Carolina in its sky blue-hued arena when the two teams meet at noon on Saturday.
North Carolina will pose quite a for the Orange. The Tar Heels (12-3, 4-0) are ranked 7th in the country and they’re off to their best start in ACC play since the 2015-16 season.
North Carolina coach Hubert Davis’ roster includes a pair of all-conference candidates in 6-11 center Armando Bacot and 6-foot guard RJ Davis.
The Tar Heels have won five straight, including a 67-54 win over arch-rival NC State on Wednesday.
Syracuse is coming off a 69-59 win over Boston College that saw the Orange squander all of a 19-point lead only to bounce back off the mat in time to fend off the Eagles. Syracuse played that game without 7-foot-4 center Naheem McLeod, who is sidelined with a foot injury. McLeod is not expected to play at North Carolina.
The game, with its noon tip-off, will be televised on ESPN.
Here are 5 Key Things to Know regarding the matchup:
Brown vs. Bacot
North Carolina’s Armando Bacot leads the ACC in rebounding with 10.7 per game. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
Saturday’s game will feature an intriguing matchup in the pivot. It’s youth versus experience and or man vs. mountain with North Carolina’s Armando Bacot going up once morest Syracuse’s Maliq Brown.
Bacot, who goes 6-foot-11 and 240 pounds, is rewriting the North Carolina record book in his fifth year as a graduate student. He’s averaging 14.5 points and leads the ACC with 10.7 rebounds per game.
Syracuse will try to counter Bacot with Brown, an athletic 6-foot-8 sophomore. Brown, a power forward, is getting all of his playing time at center this season and he figures to get even more playing time with McLeod out for the foreseeable future.
Brown continued his recent hot streak on Wednesday with 19 points, eight rebounds, four blocks, four steals and four assists in the win over Boston College. He’s averaging 17.6 points in the last five games.
Can Brown hold his own once morest Bacot while avoiding foul trouble? Will his quickness help him get to his shots? The battle of very different centers might be the key to the game.
Tar Heels’ defense
North Carolina’s teams have historically been known for playing at a fast pace. Dean Smith and Roy Williams both wanted their teams to push the ball. The Carolina fastbreak is diagrammed in text-books and used by coaches everywhere.
But this Carolina team is winning with defense.
North Carolina’s opponents are averaging 69.6 points per game. That ranks 7th in the ACC. But don’t let that fool. The Tar Heels still like to play uptempo, which can increase the scoring.
North Carolina’s Adjusted Defense Efficiency ranks 8th in the country, according to KenPom.com. The Tar Heels Effective Field Goal percentage defense ranks 23rd in the country.
The Tar Heels have three straight ACC opponents under 60 points. In those three games, North Carolina has scored 70 (vs. Pittsburgh), 65 (vs. Clemson) and 67 (vs. NC State).
It’s the first time since the 2003 season that North Carolina has scored 70 or fewer in three straight wins.
Will Syracuse be able to score enough to beat the Tar Heels?
Speaking of scoring
Syracuse did something once morest Boston College on Wednesday that it hadn’t done all season. The Orange won a game in which it scored less than 79 points.
Going into Wednesday’s game, Syracuse was 10-0 when scoring 79 or more and the most it had scored in any of its four losses was in its 86-66 loss to Duke.
Syracuse was literally boom or bust.
But now the Orange has shown it can win a game without lighting up the scoreboard. It held Boston College to a season-low 59 points. Syracuse kept the Eagles to 38% shooting, 27% 3-point shooting and forced 22 turnovers.
Syracuse is going to need a similar kind of defensive effort if it hopes to win in Chapel Hill.
UNC’s pipeline to New York
North Carolina guard R.J. Davis leads the ACC in scoring at 20.3 points per game. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
North Carolina has a long of history of recruiting players from the New York City area. From Lennie Rosenbluth to Joe Quigg to Billy Cunningham to Matt Doherty, the list just goes on and on.
RJ Davis is continuing that tradition. Davis, a native of White Plains, N.Y., attended Archbishop Stepinac High School.
As a sophomore, he was a starter on North Carolina’s 2022 Final Four team. He has every game but one since the start of that year. Davis’ game has improved every year at UNC to the point where this year, he leads the ACC in scoring at 20.3 points per game. He is hitting 39.6% of his 3-pointers. He leads the Tar Heels in assists and boasts a 2-to-1 assist-turnover ratio.
Davis is going to be a challenge for which ever Syracuse player is assigned to guard him whether it’s Judah Mintz or JJ Starling or possibly Quadir Copeland or Kyle Cuffe Jr. off the bench.
Youth vs. Experience
The North Carolina and Syracuse rosters mightn’t be more different. Most of the Syracuse players are still trying to find the school cafeteria, while half of the Tar Heels are in grad school.
According to KenPom.com, North Carolina’s roster averages 3.17 years of Division I experience. That ranks fourth nationally.
In sharp contrast, Syracuse ranks 291st in D-I experience with 1.23 years per player.
Syracuse doesn’t have a scholarship senior on its roster. The only juniors are center Naheem McLeod; a transfer from Florida State, and Benny Williams.
North Carolina, meanwhile, has four fifth-year grad students and one fourth-year senior. Bacot, Davis and Notre Dame grad transfer Cormac Ryan are all starters, while Louisville transfer Jae’Lyn Withers and Brown transfer Paxson Wojcik are key reserves.
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