PITTSBURGH — Michael Carter-Williams prepared to step to the free-throw line for three attempts. He’d just drawn a foul at the top of they key following an over-zealous close out by Pittsburgh’s Trey Zeigler, but his coach cared not about the play by his sophomore point guard. He was not interested in the opportunity to pull Syracuse within three.

Instead, Boeheim was locked into an intense conversation with Rakeem Christmas, his sophomore forward whose lack of aggression yielded a lack of rebounds.

“You’re not rebounding,” Boeheim told Christmas, exasperation etched onto his face.

He then repeated his message.

It was a common theme in Saturday’s 65-55 loss to Pittsburgh, with a shorthanded Syracuse team failing on the boards in the second half. Christmas and Baye Moussa Keita, the Orange’s two remaining interior players, combined for only six rebounds, while the Panthers’ Talib Zanna matched that number by himself on the offensive glass alone.

The result was a slew of extra possessions for Pittsburgh, which resulted in fewer chances for Syracuse to cut into a second-half deficit that swelled to as large as nine.

“I thought the difference in the second half, they just got on the boards and I think outrebounded us by 14,” Boeheim said. “They are the best rebounding team in the league, in my mind, and they took advantage of that in the second half. I thought it made the difference in the game.”

Zanna, who finished the game with 12 rebounds, had five of his six offensive rebounds in the second half. Steven Adams grabbed five of his seven rebounds in the final 20 minutes as well.

When Cameron Wright missed a forced jumper with the shot clock winding down, there was Adams, the 7-foot center, to snatch the rebound and lay it home over Keita for a six-point Pitt lead.

And though Zanna didn’t convert his six offensive rebounds into points right away, they still created extra possessions for the Panthers.

“We did a great job on the glass, and that’s what we wanted to do,” Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon said. “I told them we had to outrebound them by 15, and we did outrebound them by 15.”

That margin was due in part to Pittsburgh’s relentless crashing of the offensive glass — a pattern aided by a 10-man rotation used by Dixon to keep his players fresh — and in part to a lack of physicality by Syracuse’s players.

Several times on Saturday Christmas had rebounds bounce off one of his hands before he was able to corral it, even prompting Boeheim to yell “Rak! Two hands!” at one point in the second half.

“We weren’t getting around them,” Christmas said of himself and Keita. “They were holding us. We have to be more physical next time and just try to get around them and try to push them under the boards.”

The poor rebounding effort from SU’s interior players was ill timed with starting center DaJuan Coleman unavailable due to injury and forward James Southerland still academically ineligible. It put added pressure on Christmas and Keita to produce, which they could not. They were outrebounded by Pitt’s duo of Zanna and Adams 19 to six.

C.J. Fair and Jerami Grant, the other two Syracuse forwards, failed to chip in as well. Both played 40 minutes, and combined for just eight rebounds.

“We need to rebound better,” Boeheim said. “C.J. Fair had three in 40 minutes. I think Jerami had five. That’s not enough. We’ve got to get more rebounds. That was a big key in the game.”

Published on February 2, 2013 at 6:27 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13