Syracuse isn’t beating anyone handily — not anyone good, at least.

That means that if the Orange is winning in the final minutes of a game, then the team’s only points will most likely come from the free-throw line. This SU team isn’t producing blowout wins where the final minutes get washed away in loose possessions, but rather ones where Syracuse is constantly fouled.

Instead, Syracuse (10-4, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) goes into its 7 p.m. matchup with Georgia Tech (9-4, 0-1) on Wednesday knowing that if SU’s winning, it’ll have to sink the same 15-foot shots the team repeatedly missed against Virginia Tech on Saturday. SU was a contested 3 away from losing to the Hokies. The Yellow Jackets aren’t likely to be as forgiving.

“Ronnie said it was close,” head coach Jim Boeheim said of sophomore guard Ron Patterson’s explanation for a missed free throw late in Saturday’s game. “I said ‘Close, really?’ Close? We’re in college. This isn’t high school. My kids when they were in eighth grade said that. It was close. Close isn’t helpful here.”

Patterson went 2-for-6 from the charity stripe in the game’s final minute, a stretch that included missing a pair of free throws with four seconds left that would’ve effectively sealed the game.

Afterward Boeheim called Patterson and forward Michael Gbinije “very good free-throw shooters” who just weren’t up to the task against the Hokies. Gbinije shot 2-for-5 from the free-throw line as part of Syracuse’s 9-for-19 performance from the charity stripe in the game’s final 2:43.

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Gbinije said when asked to explain SU’s free-throw struggles down the stretch against VT.

No. 14 Notre Dame’s 71.4 free-throw percentage was the lowest figure posted by any of the four teams that have beaten Georgia Tech this season. The Fighting Irish’s 68.4 percent free-throw shooting after halftime was also the worst such percentage posted by any of the teams that beat the Yellow Jackets this year.

Syracuse shot 57.1 percent from the line against the Hokies for the game, and 52.4 percent in the second half.

It’s not that making free throws is especially key to beating GT. The Orange should make the shots against any team with any lead. But Syracuse is coming off what only ties as its third-worst free-throw shooting game of the season.

“If we make those foul shots it’s nothing really,” SU guard Trevor Cooney said after the Virginia Tech game.

The Orange is shooting 66 percent from the free-throw line this year — good for 10th in the ACC, tied for 246th in the country and slightly below Syracuse’s average of 68.4 percent from the past five seasons.

It certainly isn’t pretty.

But on Monday’s ACC coaches’ teleconference, Boeheim said if SU is ahead late in games, he thinks he has players capable of sinking free throws to protect those leads and do what they haven’t been able to yet.

Said Boeheim: “I think the guys that missed them can make them and I just hope we’re in that position where people have to foul us at the end of games.”

Published on January 6, 2015 at 4:14 pm

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_