Turnovers derail UNC against Orange

It was that kind of night.

The rhythmic flow of the North Carolina women’s basketball team, often played to the coursing beat of get-up-and-go passing and full-court dashes, devolved into a jumbled mess.

The passes, once seamless, on-target, ended up in the wrong hands — 29 times, to be exact.

So, too, did the final score, a 78-73 win for Syracuse , as UNC hosted all too hospitably and handled the ball all too charitably Thursday night.

“As a team, you can’t play good basketball turning the ball over, especially not us,” said freshman guard Diamond DeShields. “We run, and we get up and down the floor.

“When we turn the ball over, we’re stopping the game, allowing them to get set up.”

UNC (17-4, 5-2 ACC ) owed its second-half carnage to 18 turnovers dispersed among the team, even the associate head coach. Andrew Calder credited one giveaway to himself, the result of distracting a player while berating an official.

“Twenty-eight turnovers,” Calder said, omitting one for his own misstep. “I never thought this team would have 28 turnovers.”

UNC, led by a cavalcade of gifted freshmen guards, squandered a 14-point lead at halftime due , in part, to some unforced panic, Calder said. But Syracuse (16-5, 5-3 ACC ), known for a suffocating defense, turned slipshod marking in the first half into a second-half vice-grip.

At mid-court, they trapped. At UNC’s end, they pressed. The Orange, keepers of the ACC’s best turnover margin entering Thursday, shoved UNC into a bottleneck.

“It’s really about trying to stay in your system and stay within what you do,” said Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman. “Carolina really pushes your principles.”

The Tar Heels pushed mightily in the first half, setting a track-like pace and playing to their rhythm. They crumbled in the second half, though, betrayed by their predictable choices.

“We were just telegraphing,” DeShields said. “We were just looking and throwing. Obviously, they’re going to go where you look.”

The Orange spread the tentacles of their defense and gripped UNC in an unfriendly embrace. DeShields, UNC’s leading scorer, said Syracuse guard Brittney Sykes managed to get a hand on every eligible ball.

Yet the game hadn’t forever slipped away with 1:05 remaining. UNC had the ball at Syracuse’s baseline, facing the distinct possibility of narrowing the Orange’s 76-71 lead .

The Tar Heels jostled for open space — they found none. They ran to a spot — an Orange followed them. Left without an option, guard Latifah Coleman hurriedly threw a pass into the welcoming arms of an opponent.

The game drifted away shortly thereafter. With 17 seconds left , guard Danielle Butts watched helplessly as an interrupted pass dribbled through her legs. It wound up, fittingly, in Syracuse’s hands .

“That’s very uncharacteristic of us,” DeShields said of the incessant giveaways. “It mattered, and it showed.”

It was that kind of night.