PITTSBURGH – Levance Fields put it best. For Pittsburgh’s starting point guard, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out why Syracuse lost Monday night – just look at Jonny Flynn’s stat sheet.

‘If he goes 3-for-14,’ Fields said, ‘It’s going to be hard for Syracuse to win games.’ That was certainly the case against the Panthers. Flynn, SU’s star point guard, had his worst shooting game of the season. The Orange fell Monday night, 78-60, to the Panthers.

On a night when Syracuse’s big men were stifled down low by Pittsburgh’s powerful frontcourt, the Orange looked at Flynn to deliver one of those magical performances he has become famous for less than two seasons into his collegiate career.

Instead, he scored 12 points, including 0-for-5 from 3-point range, and shot just 21.4 percent from the floor in 38 minutes. It was his worst shooting performance since Jan. 9, 2008, when he shot 13.3 percent in a loss to Cincinnati.

He managed seven assists but committed three turnovers, and seemed to struggle against Pitt’s aggressive trap defense that stuffed the Orange’s familiar high pick-and-roll. It was his worst assist-to-turnover ratio since Syracuse’s win over South Florida Jan. 2.

Flynn scored his first basket about five minutes into the game. He still had two points with about five minutes left and didn’t hit another field goal until the 4:24 mark. By that point, the Panthers had a double-digit lead and the contest was well out of reach. When Syracuse managed to keep the score close through the first half and early into the second, Flynn was nowhere to be found.

‘It really shows how good you are if you bounce back from these games,’ Flynn said. ‘You can’t let these games linger around or take over your body for a whole week and have me out of my mind for the Louisville game. I just have to show my teammates I can bounce back from a game like this, and that we can bounce back from a game like this.’

Pittsburgh spent most of the game pitting guard Jermaine Dixon against Flynn. Whenever Flynn reached the top of the key, the Panthers sent another defender to trap and not let Flynn feed the ball down low or penetrate to the basket. Whenever Onuaku or Jackson came up to set the screen, Flynn had no place to go and had to pull it out and reset.

In one key stretch early in the second half, with the Orange trailing by one, Flynn missed two jumpers and had the ball stolen in the span of one minute. The score would never be that close again.

‘They were trying to trap the pick-and-roll a lot, making him get the ball up,’ SU forward Paul Harris said. ‘He made some turnovers. Jonny’s not usually making those kinds of turnovers. But tonight he made a couple of them, a couple crucial ones.’

By the time Flynn started making plays on offense, it was already well too late. Pittsburgh was in total control of the game, and the outcome was decided.

In the final four minutes, Flynn tried to bring the Orange back himself, attempting to drive to the basket almost every time down the floor. He scored 10 points in that span, mostly on free throws. When he stepped to the line for the last time in the final minute, the Pittsburgh crowd chanted, ‘Overrated.’ And on the final possession, with mere seconds remaining, Flynn seemed desperate to prove he still had something left to bring. He went for driving layups twice. Both times, the shots were stuffed right back in his face – a fitting ending to a disappointing performance.

‘Look at Michael Jordan, look at LeBron James, and you’ll see he missed 20 shots in a game one game,’ Flynn said. ‘You’re not going to have a good game every game. I know that, and that’s just going to help me through this.

‘You’re not going to have your best game every game. It’s how you bounce back from something like this that shows how good of a player you are.’

jediamon@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm