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Bourama Sidibe traveled to North Carolina with Syracuse on Tuesday night, but he wore sweatpants, not shorts. Sidibe watched the pregame shootaround, watched as his teammates were punished on the glass, watched UNC pull in more offensive rebounds (24) than SU did defensive rebounds (21). 

Following Syracuse’s COVID-19 stoppage of 18 days, Pittsburgh was supposed to be the first game the Orange would be at full strength — and head coach Jim Boeheim said as much two days prior to that game. That didn’t happen. Sidibe was sidelined with knee soreness and discomfort after practicing multiple days in a row, Boeheim said. Then, he didn’t play against Georgetown on Saturday. Or North Carolina.

The Orange dropped another game in Chapel Hill on Tuesday night, a place they’ve never won at, against a team they rarely beat. Postgame, Boeheim was no longer optimistic about his center.

“He cannot play. I’m not a doctor, all I can tell you is he cannot play,” Boeheim said.

Tuesday night may have been the inflection point of the 2020-21 season. In the building where Michael Jordan said in 2017 that “the ceiling is the roof,” the Orange’s ceiling lowered, perhaps crashed, with the possibility of Sidibe’s extended or even permanent absence.

As North Carolina (7-3, 3-2 Atlantic Coast) beat Syracuse (7-3, 1-2 ACC), 81-75, for the 10th time in the last 11 meetings, the Tar Heels outrebounded the Orange 48-31. Boeheim lauded his team’s road effort but acknowledged the clear reality: Syracuse doesn’t have the front-line depth to compete with the bigger fronts in the nation. Not every team they will play is as big as North Carolina, but all of the Orange’s losses have come to bigger opponents.

“They battled as hard as they could, they gave it everything they had inside,” Boeheim said. “But Marek is giving up 50 pounds to three different guys.”

There’s no timetable as to when or if Sidibe could return, and there’s no evidence Sidibe will be effective or remain healthy when he does. The senior center isn’t Syracuse’s best player, but he’s certainly difficult to replace. He’s battled numerous knee injuries throughout his career, and it’s a failure in both recruiting and development that the Orange are now in an impossible situation with no one who can step up behind Sidibe.

Syracuse was outrebounded 24-10 on the offensive boards by UNC. Courtesy of Robert Willett | Raleigh News & Observer

Boeheim’s tried to find younger centers, but none of them are talented enough or developed enough to currently play significant minutes at the level required. Sidibe could return next year with his extra year of eligibility, but the inability to find the SU’s next center has eluded the program for years. 

John Bol Ajak is a redshirt freshman. Boeheim says he’s too small to contribute. Ajak played spotty minutes off the bench in five different games, but never more than nine. 

Frank Anselem is a freshman. Boeheim says he’ll be out at least two more weeks following his return from isolation during the Orange’s COVID-19 pause. An SU Athletics spokesperson said that he was not practicing with the team as of Jan. 7.

That leaves Jesse Edwards, who the Orange are trying to prepare in practice. Edwards played seven minutes on Tuesday night, missed one free throw and had one block. But he couldn’t pull in a rebound. 

“He just didn’t compete on the boards,” Boeheim said. “He’s got to compete on the backboards, and he didn’t.”

When Quincy Guerrier got into foul trouble against Pittsburgh, the Orange couldn’t compete for rebounds. An offensive rebound and tip-in was the deciding basket that afternoon. Even with Guerrier on Tuesday, the Orange couldn’t match North Carolina and allowed 24 second-chance points while tallying four themselves. 

Marek Dolezaj hasn’t fouled out this year, but the seven minutes he sat after two early fouls don’t offer much optimism for the lineup SU might play without him. Few teams in the ACC will be as big as Pittsburgh or North Carolina, but there’s been a clear pattern established on how to beat Syracuse, and Boeheim has no way to counterpunch. 

The game was won when….

The Tar Heels went on a 13-0 run right after the Orange reached their highest win percentage of the night, 59%, when leading 56-51 with about 11 minutes to play. That’s twice in three games that the Orange have led by at least five points with 11 minutes to go and surrendered the lead. They survived a near collapse against Georgetown, but the inability to execute offensively in the game’s final 10 minutes is becoming a troubling trend. 

Source: KenPom.com

Syracuse clawed its way back to a very brief one-point lead, and this was the moment for the Orange to seize the game. North Carolina could not make a shot from the outside or interior prior to this stretch, and the Orange completely wasted their chance to extend the lead following a 16-2 run. 

Three of the Orange’s next four possessions resulted in turnovers and the fourth was a contested missed 3 from Alan Griffin. Two of the turnovers led to fouls that gave UNC free points from the free throw line. Buddy Boeheim missed a wide open 3, and suddenly, the Orange’s five-point lead was an eight-point deficit. 

Quote of the night: Jim Boeheim

“We almost have to play a perfect game on offense. We weren’t perfect. We played pretty well; we just got beat up in the paint. They battled as hard as they could.”

Boeheim admitted what he has — or doesn’t have — in his frontcourt with that comment. He was brief in his postgame press conference, keeping his remarks to under six minutes in total. 

Number to know: 1

Dolezaj pulled in one rebound in 34 minutes on Tuesday night, his lowest tally of the season. His second lowest total came against Rutgers (4). Those numbers suggest that without Sidibe, the Orange will be severely limited on the glass against bigger teams. Dolezaj’s lone rebound came with 2:17 to play, following a Caleb Love missed jumpshot, with the Orange trailing by one.

Game ball: Quincy Guerrier

Guerrier had his best performance of the season given the circumstances and opponent on Tuesday night. He finished with 23 points on 9-of-18 shooting. While the sophomore forward struggled from beyond the arc, he made 8-of-12 inside the Tar Heels’ elite 2-point defense.

“I was going to the 3-point line and started dribbling and beat my man trying to finish at the rim,” Guerrier said. “I think that’s how I took advantage, especially in the second half. But I got to be physical when it’s time to finish around the rim.”

Once the Tar Heels keyed in on Buddy in the second half following his first half outburst, it opened up space for Guerrier, who is in the midst of the leap from his up-and-down freshman year. He’s one of the conference’s most improved players, and despite his usage rate increasing 4%, his effective field percentage has risen from 50.6% to 62.4%. Guerrier finished with 11 rebounds and five blocks, carrying the weight of the entire rebounding presence on his own as Dolezaj had one rebound. 

Three final points

Buddy’s hot hand

Buddy’s 18-point first half was the most energy the junior guard has had all season. He personally sparked an 8-0 run to end the first half, erasing North Carolina’s lead and tying the game at 40. Buddy was effective coming off screens, spotting up and hitting pullup jumpers.

He didn’t seem too concerned about his shooting struggles following the loss to Georgetown. He had a slow start to his freshman year as a jump shooter before picking it up in conference play, and he’ll need to do that again for the Orange.

Buddy has now had three separate stints in quarantine since the period right before the season, which could be interrupting his shooting rhythm. He also missed multiple games, but there are signs that the junior guard is starting to heat up. He’s made 7-of-15 from 3 in the last two games and had two of his three highest offensive ratings of the season.

Even though Tuesday was a step in the right direction, and his year-long percentage from 3 is back above 30% after dipping as low as 24% prior to Georgetown, the Orange need him to be even better than last year’s 37% clip if they want to try to improve their ceiling.

Griffin’s shot selection

Griffin’s debut season for the Orange has been up and down, but if there’s one shot the transfer wing has down, it’s the stepback mid-range jumper. Boeheim may not want him to shoot too many of these, but he made both of his attempts in the loss on Tuesday and seems to almost always make that shot.

Griffin competed inside for rebounds and pulled in seven, but his increased consistency instead of occasional flashes could be another way for the Orange to find extra potential to improve off the bubble.

SU’s other shooters

The non-Buddy shooters made just 6-of-20 from 3 in this game, and that’s not good enough for the Orange. The sample size is still small, but they’ve now played 10 games and are nearing the halfway point of the regular season. Syracuse is shooting 32.8% from 3, which is the 196th best percentage in the country.

The stop-and-start nature of the season certainly hasn’t helped the jump shooters, but their current number isn’t much different from last season’s 32.9%. There’s missing points for this SU offense from beyond the 3-point line, and if they can add them, it’s another way for the Orange to try to gain an edge on opponents. As of now, there’s not one thing this team is particularly great at statistically.

Next up

The Orange will travel to Pittsburgh for a chance to get revenge against the Panthers on Saturday. Pittsburgh won in the Carrier Dome on Jan. 7, rallying from 16 points down with 11 minutes to play. SU tips at 12 p.m. at the Petersen Events Center.

Published on January 13, 2021 at 3:10 am

Contact Anthony: amdabbun@syr.edu | @AnthonyDabbundo