For one half, Rakeem Christmas looked like the unproductive Rakeem Christmas of old.

It was, truly, a tale of two halves for the senior. Miami’s trapping strategy and tough interior defense led to an inefficient first half for the Syracuse big man while forward Tyler Roberson reaped the benefits. But Christmas’ more aggressive second half filled out the stat line — 23 points on 9-of-17 shooting — the SU senior is more accustomed to generating.

Still, his resurgence wasn’t enough Saturday, as the Orange (14-6, 5-2 Atlantic Coast) fell to the Hurricanes (14-5, 4-2), 66-62, in the Carrier Dome.

“If we want to win, we’ve definitely got to have him the ball,” Syracuse forward Michael Gbinije said. “We needed him the ball at all times, not just the end.”

Instead of assigning their biggest interior defender to the Syracuse offense’s focal point, the Hurricanes had 7-foot, 244-pound center Tonye Jekiri defend Roberson loosely with the freedom to roam the paint as a help defender and guard the rim.

That opened up chances for Roberson to be the Orange’s leading scorer with eight points at halftime, while also grabbing eight boards en route to his fourth double-double of the year.

Although Christmas was often able to cleanly pass out of Miami’s 4-5 trap — which limited Duke phenom Jahlil Okafor in UM’s win on Jan. 13 — the Hurricanes’ physicality distanced him from the basket. By the time Christmas made his first field goal of the game with 2:21 remaining in the first half, he had committed a turnover and missed three jumpers and a layup— plus three foul shots.

“He was making his moves in the first half,” SU guard Trevor Cooney said. “I don’t know what was happening. They just seemed not to go in, really.”

But to counter Roberson’s production and UM forward Omar Sherman’s foul trouble, the Hurricanes switched to a 1-5 trap after halftime and sent point guard Angel Rodriguez to double team Christmas and leave SU guard Ron Patterson — who scored just three points all game — unattended.

The change helped hold Roberson to just two second-half points, but sending Rodriguez, a smaller defender, didn’t stop Christmas from being the scoring machine he’d been all season — even as the Hurricanes switched the bigger Jekiri on him.

“I was starting to get shots I was normally taking,” he said.

After netting just five points in the first half and missing three of his first four attempts of the second, Christmas went right at Miami’s Ivan Cruz Uceda for an and-one with 12:06 left and didn’t miss again from the field. The bucket started a run of 13 Christmas points that carried the Orange out of a 12-point deficit and brought the game to a 56-54 Hurricanes lead.

Instead of flipping up hook shots from the middle of the paint, the big man was instead maneuvering around Miami defenders and attacking the basket head-on.

The Orange again turned to Christmas for a basket in the final minute to cut UM’s lead to one, but Syracuse’s free-throw struggles — highlighted by Christmas’ 5-for-11 showing from the line — were too much to overcome in the end.

Miami head coach Jim Larranaga said the SU senior should be in serious consideration for ACC player of the year. Christmas’ final stat line from Saturday would support that.

Larranaga was being sarcastic when he said his Hurricanes did “a hell of a job” defending Christmas, but the fact that Miami’s now beaten two of the ACC’s premier big men — despite what their final stat lines were — wouldn’t refute that statement, either.

Said Larranaga: “We decided the team probably has some confidence in that strategy and we’ll do it again and see if it works, and it did in the first half.”

Published on January 24, 2015 at 10:28 pm

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