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Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry thought Julian Roper II’s buzzer-beater 3 to end the first half was the difference.

Ninety seconds earlier, his team was up by 29 and seemingly had the game out of reach at that point. But Roper’s 3 capped up a 9-0 run to close the half for the Fighting Irish, and perfectly foreshadowed the ND 3-point onslaught that crumbled Syracuse’s lead to just three in the second half and almost gave the Orange a nightmarish ending.

Syracuse’s (18-10, 9-8 Atlantic Coast Conference) once 49-20 lead turned into an 88-85 scoreline over Notre Dame (10-17, 5-11 ACC). SU dominated the first half but essentially plateaued once it reached the 29-point lead. In the second half, ND found its stride — it was shooting nearly 70% by the Under-4 timeout in the second half and made 10 second-half 3s, getting back into the game behind Markus Burton’s game-high 28 points and Braeden Shrewsberry’s six 3-point attempts.

Yet, the Orange survived, picking up their fifth win in six games over Notre Dame and winning their third-straight over the Fighting Irish.

“We have to figure out how to keep that first half going in the second half,” Autry said. “I was happy that we got another win.”

Autry said he talked to his team about Roper II’s shot at halftime, and emphasized that it couldn’t start “flat” in the first four minutes of the second half. Autry said that Notre Dame was getting shots in the second half that it wasn’t seeing in the first.

With 25.1 seconds remaining, Notre Dame called a timeout, trailing 86-83 with possession of the ball. Shrewsberry inbounded the ball from the baseline with 20 seconds on the shot clock, and Syracuse brought in more height with Chris Bell defensively. ND designed the play for a Shrewsberry 3, but he missed just his second of eight attempts.

Bell grabbed the rebound and made both free throws of the ensuing one-and-one, though Burton scored on the other end. Still up by three, Quadir Copeland had a chance to ice the game but missed a one-and-one. On ND’s final realistic opportunity, Burton missed another 3.

Similar to his 3 to close the first half, Roper II hit another clutch triple to bring the game to that 86-83 deficit with 67 seconds remaining. Just a couple minutes earlier, Syracuse had incrementally brought the lead back to double digits.

Judah Mintz hit a fadeaway jumper to give SU a 10-point lead with 3:20 to go, only for Shrewsberry to hit ND’s eighth 3-pointer of the second half. Maliq Brown followed up with a put-back dunk, but once again, Shrewsberry aired a rerun of the crowd-silencing 3-pointer as Notre Dame had possession of the ball trailing by six with 77 seconds left.

“Obviously, we let them get back into it and they hit shots but we did a good job finishing the game out and coming up with big rebounds,” guard Justin Taylor said, adding that he was just trying to stay “level-headed” during the run.

Shrewsberry scored all 18 of his points in the second half. He drained a couple of 3s from the right wing to start the second-half scoring for the Fighting Irish. A pair of free throws by Mintz re-extended the SU lead to 23, but two Shrewsberry triples from the right wing cut that down to 17 as Autry burned a timeout a few minutes into the second half. Just before the Under-16 timeout, Burton drained a 3 from the same spot, trimming the lead to 15.

Notre Dame kept slowly inching back. By the Under-12 timeout, it was just an 11-point deficit. Burton, on the fast break, crossed the ball behind his back and scored the easy lay-in past Mintz. After J.J. Starling missed a 3, Tae Davis drilled a 3 in the corner.

The Orange were continuing to make baskets, not at the rate of the first half, but they were still making them. Copeland had a 3-point play of a Mintz steal. Mintz found Brown underneath for a lay-in and Bell scored another 3, but unlike the first half, Notre Dame had ways to respond.

On a stretch of two and a half minutes midway through the second, Notre Dame made three consecutive triples — the first came from Burton while Shrewsberry scored the other. ND’s 3-ball single-handedly got the Irish back into the game, making seven in the half by under the Under-8 timeout, where Syracuse had a slim 72-65 lead following another Bell 3.

“Burton got it going, (but) Burton wasn’t the problem,” Autry said. “It was really Shrewsberry.”

Neither were factors in the first half for Syracuse, which had shot over 60% from the floor in the first frame. Aside from trailing 5-0 to start, Syracuse bolted right back and maintained the lead. They were relying on ND turnovers — the Fighting Irish had 11 in the first 20 minutes — and Syracuse turned that into 23 points in the opening frame. In the second, ND only had six turnovers and SU turned that into just eight points.

SU’s defense forced five ND turnovers in just the first 8:30 of the game. Mintz intercepted a Shrewsberry pass at the top of the key, and took it coast-to-coast, creating the and-one opportunity by forcing a foul on Burton.

Then, Syracuse played tight defense at the top of the key, with Taylor and Mintz closing out, forcing the Fighting Irish to take a shot-clock violation. Entering the Under-12 timeout, Roper II dribbled the ball off of his knee.

Syracuse’s lead quelled to 29 with just a few minutes remaining in the first, but those final few minutes belonged to Notre Dame, which closed the half on a run to create a 49-29 deficit. Burton had back-to-back driving layups, following one from Davis. Then, Roper II’s banked 3 foreshadowed the 3-point shooting ND used to get itself back in the game and provide a scare.

“We knew we couldn’t lose, obviously for Jim Boeheim Day, and for us too,” Mintz said. “It wasn’t pressure but at the end of day we knew we had to come out with a win.”

Published on February 24, 2024 at 2:34 pm

Contact Cole: colebambini@gmail.com | @ColeBambini