With 10 minutes left, North Carolina looked like it was going to have a flawless victory with a 72-40 lead over Syracuse at the Dean Smith Center on Monday night.
The first 30 minutes of the game looked like an easy warmup before it plays Duke on Saturday, until it looked like Syracuse could pull off an unlikely come-from-behind upset. In the final 10 minutes, the Orange went on a 37-15 run and trimmed UNC’s lead to just seven with 1:22 left.
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Carolina allowed Syracuse to make 14 of its 17 field-goal attempts and go 3-for-6 from beyond the arc in the final 10 minutes before the Orange missed their final three shots. Even worse, the Tar Heels missed eight of their 11 shot attempts and coughed up the ball six times during the same span.
While North Carolina won 87-77, it was an underwhelming finish to what was a great all-around game for the Tar Heels until the final 10 minutes. While UNC was favored by 10 points, had it held its large lead it would have been better for the metrics — ones that would help North Carolina when the committee comes out with its seedings.
Head coach Hubert Davis explained what happened in the collapse:
We were on point, and Syracuse is a great basketball team. Coach (Adrian) Autry is a fantastic coach, and you can see they’re extremely talented. But the last nine minutes and 32 seconds, just a departure of what allowed us to get the lead — taking good shots, taking care of the basketball, executing defensively, defending without fouling. Execution wise, defensively, boxing out, just different stuff like that, and they got it to six. And so we’ll watch the film and learn from it.
It was a concerning finish for the Tar Heels, especially with their archrival, No. 4 Duke, coming to the Dean Smith Center on Saturday night.
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This article originally appeared on Tar Heels Wire: UNC Basketball: Carolina’s ugly finish in win over Syracuse
