WASHINGTON, D.C. — After Bradley Hayes air-balled a 5-foot baseline jumper, the ball was tipped up into the air and was anyone’s for the taking.

But Hayes was the only player with a real chance at it. He used every inch of his 7-foot frame to snatch the ball out of the air. Then he missed another shot, this one right at the rim, before corralling his own miss and laying it in with just over 16 minutes left in the game.

Hayes took three shots in seven seconds as Syracuse’s big men leapt, to no avail, alongside him. He was also fouled by Michael Gbinije as he connected, and the ensuing free throw gave the Hoyas its largest game of the lead at 21.

“In the whole game, the second-chance shots kind of hurt us,” Syracuse center Dajuan Coleman said. “You need to stop offensive rebounds, and it hurt.”

No. 14 Syracuse (6-2) gave a late push — pulling as close as six with 32 seconds left — but was ultimately overmatched in a 79-72 loss to Georgetown (4-3) at the Verizon Center on Saturday. Hayes and the Hoyas’ other bigs were too much to handle in the paint, and Hayes finished with a dominating 21 points and eight rebounds. Georgetown finished with 14 offensive rebounds, and the Orange only narrowed the rebounding gap when the game accelerated into an up-and-down frenzy in the final minutes.

SU’s second straight loss was the first game of head coach Jim Boeheim’s NCAA-sanctioned nine-game suspension. Mike Hopkins coached the Orange in his place, and Syracuse was simply outmuscled in the teams’ 91st meeting.

“A lot of the breakdowns came from second-chance points,” said SU’s point guard Gbinije, who finished with a game-high 23 points. “A lot of times we were actually moving well on defense, then they’d force up a shot but they’d get an offensive rebound and score instantly that way. So we have to do a better job of rebounding.”

In its first loss of the season to Wisconsin on Wednesday, Syracuse was out-rebounded 51-25 and couldn’t matchup with the Badgers inside. From the opening tip on Saturday, Georgetown worked the ball into the high post and then down to Hayes on the block.

When the Syracuse zone pressed out to take away shooters, the Hoyas threw it into the high post then pounded the Orange in the paint. When SU tried to take away the low post, Georgetown found open shooters and shot a decent 4-of-11 from 3 in the first half. When Syracuse forced a bad shot, it didn’t rebound.

“They were working it around a little bit and get us out. They had some pretty good shooters who we had to respect and get out to,” Trevor Cooney said of what led to the defensive breakdowns inside. “They eventually got the ball into the high post which hurt us.”

That’s how it played out, over and over, and the Syracuse offense couldn’t keep up. The Orange finished 7-of-27 from 3. Freshman shooter Malachi Richardson went 0-for-5 from deep. Tyler Lydon went 0-for-2. Cooney and Gbinije weren’t too much better at a combined 6-for-17.

As each shot clanged off the rim and Georgetown’s airtight man-to-man closed driving lanes, Syracuse’s size became more of a detriment. Each second-chance point stung a little more. When the comeback hit full swing, Hayes hit a pair of jump hooks that put it to rest.

Hopkins mixed and matched his front court to try and find answers. He worked in Coleman to try and push Hayes off the block, Roberson to rebound from the wing and Lydon to protect the rim with his length and stretch the floor on offense.

But the result, as it was against the Badgers three days prior, was that the Orange was too weak in the paint and not good enough outside of it compete for 40 minutes.

“You have to be hitting 3s to their 2s,” Hopkins said. “And if you don’t…”

He trailed off and started talking about something else. The end of the first thought was on the final scoreboard.

Published on December 5, 2015 at 3:19 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse