ATLANTA — It ended in a familiar spot for C.J. Fair, the player who has carried Syracuse ever since the season began five months ago on a ship in San Diego Harbor. He sat before his locker in the early hours of Sunday morning, fresh off a loss to Michigan in the national semifinals, and fielded questions that certainly spawned déjà vu for the junior forward.

Once again, and for the fourth time since Feb. 23 against Georgetown, Fair was asked about his brilliant offensive play offset by the lackluster showing from his teammates. In a season that was dominated by defense first and defense second, scoring was the Orange’s Achilles heel.

And ultimately that dichotomy — the one separating Fair’s offensive consistency from his teammates’ bouts of invisibility — prevented Syracuse from reaching the national title game for the first time in 10 years.

“I feel as though I’ve got to produce at a high level for this team to even have a shot at winning,” Fair said quietly to a reporter. “That’s how I think about it.”

Fair was brilliant in a 61-56 loss to the Wolverines inside the Georgia Dome, scoring a game-high 22 points and grabbing six rebounds. He made nine of his 20 field goal attempts and was the only source of offense for Syracuse in portions of both halves.

But in the biggest game of the season against arguably the best team Syracuse has faced all season, Fair’s production alone was not enough. Michael Carter-Williams and James Southerland were major no-shows, and Fair could not win the game playing one-on-five.

“Without him,” Jerami Grant said, “we wouldn’t have won a lot of games that we won.”

When it was all over, though, after Syracuse hadn’t won and Jordan Morgan punctuated Michigan’s victory with a soaring two-handed dunk in the final seconds, the mood in the Orange locker room was eerily similar to the scene in Milwaukee following a 74-71 loss to Marquette on Feb. 25. On that night, which became SU’s second loss in a streak where it dropped four out of five, Fair went almost 12 minutes without an official field goal attempt in the second half.

He let out his frustration quietly — almost in a whisper — to the same reporter, expressing his displeasure over his lack of involvement in the offense when he is clearly the team’s most reliable scoring option.

On Saturday, Fair did not attempt a shot in the final three minutes. Instead, Carter-Williams turned the ball over, Triche did the same and Trevor Cooney flung up a wild one-handed runner with nine seconds remaining to ensure defeat.

The empty offensive trips in the final three minutes came, coincidentally, on possessions where Fair never attempted a shot. For 37 minutes he was spectacular, and Syracuse went away from him in the three most important minutes of the season.

“This was the first time during the tournament that we were down,” Syracuse assistant coach Adrian Autry said. “They’re a good team. We cut the lead to half, and we never could really get over that four-point opportunity. We came up with a couple of empty possessions.”

Fair opened the game by scoring nine of his team’s first 14 points. He showed his strength with a driving bank shot, his touch with a baseline jumper and his range with a 3-pointer from left of the circle over the 6-foot-10-inch Mitch McGary.

And when Syracuse trailed by 10 with 14:56 remaining, Fair brought his team back almost singlehandedly. He scored seven of the next 12 points for the Orange, and his baseline floater cut the Michigan lead to three, 48-45, with just under eight minutes remaining.

“He’s a great player,” Carter-Williams said. “I think he had a mismatch on him and was able to knock down shots. He just carried us the whole game offensively.”

Fair carried them Saturday — the same way he had all season — and he finished the year as the team’s leading scorer, rebounder and most accurate 3-point shooter.

But none of that mattered in the final three minutes, as Fair stood idle while Carter-Williams (two points, five turnovers) and James Southerland (five points, held scoreless for the first 38:02) hoarded the ball with the season on the line.

Afterwards, Fair spoke quietly and candidly about his play compared to that of his teammates, about how he feels he has a mismatch in every game he plays and without him Syracuse is cooked. It was a postgame scene that mirrored several during the last five months, only this time there were a few more sniffles and tear-stained eyes.

All around him his teammates hung their heads, not one of them happy with they way they had played. But there was Fair — this team’s Mr. Consistent — caught awkwardly between personal success and collective sadness.

He did his part. But nobody joined him.

“I was being aggressive like I think I should have,” he said. “I just think we didn’t score enough.”

Published on April 7, 2013 at 3:46 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13