Donnie Freeman drops 23, but No. 14 UNC beats Syracuse 87-77
Despite Donnie Freeman's herculean 23-point effort, Syracuse suffered a 87-77 road defeat at the hands of North Carolina. Leonardo Eriman | Senior Staff Photographer
Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our sports newsletter here.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — It’s hard to imagine what Monday night’s Syracuse-North Carolina game would’ve been like without Donnie Freeman. For most of the contest, he essentially did everything for the Orange. They ran their offense through him and him only. They only rested him for five minutes. He scored 56% of their first-half points and 30% by the final buzzer.
But when those horns blared inside the Dean E. Smith Center just past 9 p.m., Freeman’s 23-point night was overshadowed by UNC outclassing SU in every other facet of the game.
A one-man army can’t win battles. Syracuse (13-10, 4-6 Atlantic Coast) learned that the hard way against No. 14 North Carolina (18-4, 6-3 Atlantic Coast), falling 87-77 on the road for its fifth loss over its last six games. SU trailed by as much as 32 points in the second half. Under third-year head coach Adrian Autry, the Orange are now 4-22 in Quad 1 games, Monday being the latest squandered opportunity.
Despite getting crushed for most of the game, Syracuse somehow made a late push at what would’ve been a generational comeback. Nate Kingz buried two 3-pointers in the final minutes — his first made 3s of the night — to make it a seven-point deficit. Another bucket from J.J. Starling made it a six-point contest soon after. But that was simply too little, too late for SU.
Syracuse — excluding Freeman’s shots — finished 21-for-51 from the floor. The Orange tallied just two first-half assists and seven overall, failing to move the ball. Autry’s squad also turned the ball over 10 times (nine in the first half) and let UNC freshman forward Caleb Wilson repeatedly torment them.
Autry has delivered an upset win over Tar Heels head coach Hubert Davis before. But on Monday, no dice. UNC played like a complete team, while SU’s solo artist — Freeman — couldn’t beat the Tar Heels by himself.
The shot that encapsulated the entire contest was a buzzer-beater to close the first half, when Freeman nailed a fadeaway 3-pointer from the left wing. His miraculous effort trimmed Syracuse’s halftime deficit from 17 points to 14.
The night’s proceedings began with the news that Freeman was indeed back in SU’s starting five. He surprisingly started off the Orange’s last game on the bench in an eventual 86-72 win over Notre Dame. Freeman played 22 minutes and scored seven points, though it didn’t matter, since Nate Kingz and J.J. Starling combined for 49 points on eight made 3s.
Who knows if Autry put Freeman on the bench as some sort of pseudo punishment. Either way, he certainly needed the 6-foot-9 star forward versus a North Carolina lineup that features its stud freshman big, Wilson, and 7-footer Henri Veesaar.
Freeman came to play, logging 35 minutes, ending as the game’s scoring leader and grabbing eight rebounds. But he couldn’t do much of anything to slow down Wilson and Co.
The Tar Heels, per usual, ran their offensive sets around Wilson and Veesaar — their first two buckets of the game came on assists from the latter to the former. Wilson started 3-for-3 from the field for six points and finished with a 22-point, 6-for-14 shooting night. He was simply too big, too strong and too athletic for SU to contend with.
Meanwhile, Syracuse made tons of mistakes.
Kiyan Anthony took a few ill-advised shots, none of which went in and one of which resulted in an immediate 3-pointer from UNC guard Jonathan Powell. SU had nine first-half turnovers, including a Naithan George travel right after Autry called a timeout. It allowed too many wide-open 3s, like another one to Powell in the corner that gave the Tar Heels their largest first-half lead at 46-29. On that play, SU inexplicably switched to a 2-3 zone.
Truly, the only occasions the Orange looked competent against UNC was when Freeman dribbled the basketball. He looked every bit like an NBA lottery pick; strong with the ball, deadly from range, a force on the glass. When Autry put Freeman on the bench over a minute into the second half with SU down by 17 points, North Carolina looked as if it was playing an AAU team.
Same goes for the end of the first. After Freeman went to the bench for the first time with 2:42 left before halftime, Syracuse trailed just 34-29. As soon as Autry subbed him out, his team allowed a 12-0 run from UNC.
By the 11:45 mark of the second half, the Orange trailed the Tar Heels 69-40.
At that point, Autry’s only form of consolation was ensuring this one wasn’t a worse result than when Syracuse lost to UNC 103-67 on Jan. 13, 2024, during his first season as head coach.
Fast forward to Monday, though this defeat looked much closer on the scoreboard than it really was, not much has changed from when Autry last visited the Dean Dome.
