The ball ping-ponged around the 2-3 zone with pace. From a pump fake on the perimeter by Ashton Gibbs, it quickly zipped inside to Lamar Patterson along the right baseline.

Then there was patience. The Pittsburgh offense reset, kicked the ball back out to Gibbs and tried the left side of the Syracuse defense.

Next came the precision. Patterson, who had slipped along the baseline to the left corner, received a pass from Gibbs, pump faked and was fouled with one second on the shot clock.

‘We got the ball inside and attacked it well,’ Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon said.

But ultimately, no result. Patterson made just one of two free throws, reflecting the Panthers’ night offensively.

Despite a well-designed offensive game plan that yielded countless shots in the paint, Pittsburgh’s inefficiency at the rim and from the free-throw line proved costly. A slew of missed layups and a 12-of-23 performance from the charity stripe yielded a 71-63 loss to Syracuse (20-0, 7-0 Big East), spoiling the valiant comeback.

‘I thought we attacked the zone pretty well, but some missed layups I think really hurt us early,’ Dixon said. ‘And the free-throw line, we could have shot it better from the free-throw line and that would have put us in position.’

From the game’s early possessions, the Panthers maneuvered easily through the Orange defense and got the ball to the rim. Nasir Robinson found space at the free-throw line to catch and drop the ball down low to Talib Zanna two minutes into the game, but the Pitt forward’s dunk attempt was blocked by Fab Melo.

It was one of six blocks for Melo on the night, as SU’s interior defense frustrated the Panthers in the first half. Zanna and Robinson managed only one point between them in that half.

‘I think our defense was really good early in the first half again,’ Boeheim said. ‘I don’t think we’re — we’re not able to sustain our defense as well as we can play in the first half the last two or three basketball games, which is a concern.’

The second half, though, saw the Orange gamble a bit defensively. As Pitt continued to station Robinson at the free-throw line, the Syracuse defenders started to bite on pump fakes.

Keita rushed forward toward Robinson in the middle of the paint with 13:36 left in the second half, and he calmly wrapped a pass around the SU center to Dante Taylor for the lay-in.

And out of the 11:01 media timeout, Dixon drew up the same play with Patterson playing the role of distributor. From the center of the lane he dropped a pass down to Zanna for an easy dunk, closing the Syracuse lead from 14 to six.

‘We stopped the high-low in the beginning,’ Syracuse forward C.J. Fair said. ‘Then in the second half, we got a little greedy because we knew the 3s were about to start coming. So we just tried to anticipate. We thought they were going to throw it to the shooters, but they were dumping it down low. They got us off-tilt a little bit.’

Zanna and Robinson combined for 12 points in the second half, and all three of Patterson’s assists came in the second 20 minutes.

The 3s blended in as well.

John Johnson nailed a pair from long range — first to answer a jumper by Scoop Jardine, then a 3 by Dion Waiters.

The surge in offensive productivity — only one turnover in the first 11:52 of the second half — was coupled with a stellar rebounding effort to limit the Orange to one shot offensively on many possessions in the second half.

Pitt refused to go away.

‘Most physical team that we’re going to play,’ Brandon Triche said. ‘Pittsburgh is physical every year. They outrebounded us by 12 on the backboard, so that kind of tells you how physical they are.’

The lead was whittled to four with 8:36 to play before the inefficiencies from the first half returned for the Panthers.

Gibbs, who is one of the best free-throw shooters in the Big East, bricked a front end of a 1-and-1 with 6:53 to go. Zanna missed a short jumper in the lane five seconds later. He split a pair of free throws a minute after that.

Too many points left on the floor for the Panthers to pull an upset.

‘You can’t miss layups and some free throws, too,’ Dixon said. ‘I felt like we had some three-point plays that we ended up getting maybe one or none out of the points that should have been on the play.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on January 16, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13