HOUSTON — The last time Syracuse was preparing for the Final Four, in Atlanta in 2013, it was the length atop its zone versus Michigan’s dynamite backcourt.

Orange point guard Michael Carter-Williams stood 6 feet, 7 inches. Shooting guard Brandon Triche 6 feet, 4 inches. If anything was going to bother Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr., Nik Stauskas and Glenn Robinson III (all NBA players) on the perimeter, it was going to be their floor-scraping arms. And that’s what happened, as the Wolverines’ high-scoring quartet made just four of its 19 attempts from 3.

SU still lost 61-56, but two young players took note of what the top of the 2-3 zone had meant to that game, that Tournament run and that entire season.

“When I watched Mike and Brandon play the zone, that’s how I wanted to play it,” Gbinije said earlier this season, well before Syracuse made a near-impossible Final Four run. “I just saw myself like Mike because of the size, and I think now Trevor (Cooney) and I can kind of emulate what they were able to.”

Cooney was a redshirt freshman that season, playing sparingly all year but on the court for the end of that loss with Carter-Williams and Triche fouled out. Gbinije was sitting out the season after transferring from Duke, and watched the whole Tournament from Syracuse due to NCAA rules about transfers traveling. They were glued to the Carter-Williams-Triche pairing because they saw themselves as future cogs in Jim Boeheim’s defensive machine, but also for a more exact reason.

Gbinije is 6-foot-7. Cooney is 6-foot-4. The zone they watched navigate Syracuse through the 2013 Tournament isn’t just a good blueprint, but also something they can feasibly create.

And with a matchup against top-seeded North Carolina (32-6, 14-4 Atlantic Coast) at NRG Stadium on Saturday night, Cooney and Gbinije will need to channel their predecessors one more time to deny passes into the high and low post. It’s a different challenge that Carter-Williams and Triche faced three years ago, with the Tar Heels’ frontcourt capable of ripping the Orange (23-13, 9-9) zone to shreds.

But the message is the same: Maximize that length. Defense wins.

“When you’ve got guys that are so good and so dominant down low, part of our job is to stop it from getting down there,” Cooney said on Saturday. “Take away angles on passes and just make it tough for them.”

Before diving a bit further into the SU-UNC matchup, let’s peer at what Cooney and Gbinije were studying in that last Final Four game.

Michigan, by Kenpom.com’s metrics, was arguably the country’s best offense. Syracuse, by Kenpom.com’s metrics, was arguably the country’s best offense. The Wolverines had the nation’s best adjusted offensive efficiency, lowest team turnover percentage, the 11th-best team 2-point percentage and the 25th-best team 3-point percentage. The Orange’s defense was holding opponents to fifth-worst effective field-goal percentage in the nation, third-worst 3-point percentage and protected the rim with the country’s best team blocks percentage.

That’s a lot of statistics to digest at once, but the game told a straightforward story. Carter-Williams and Triche bounced around the court, suffocated the guards and had a large hand in holding Michigan to 61 points, its third lowest total of the season despite the win. If you cover up the final score — impossible to do in history but semi-reasonable here — offense met defense and defense won.

“I think Mike and I have done some thinking about those guys and what they did,” Cooney said, also well before the Tournament. “The length in the zone can be such a difference-maker, and if you’re active and using it you can play with anybody.”

If Syracuse is to beat North Carolina and advance to the national championship on Monday, it will have to prove that last point right. That the zone allows it to play with anybody. That the zone could lead to one more upset, this time against a Tar Heels team that’s beaten the Orange twice this season and can score down low at will.

What UNC doesn’t do is shoot the 3 ball particularly well, which could slightly shift Gbinije and Cooney’s focus to start the game. If the two can use their long arms to crowd passing lanes and stall the ball from going into the paint, Dajuan Coleman, Tyler Roberson and Tyler Lydon will have more time to adjust and position themselves to protect the rim. And with Brice Johnson (17.1 points per game), Isaiah Hicks (9.1 in 18.1 minutes per game) and Kennedy Meeks (9.2 in 20.4 minutes), SU’s frontcourt will need any advantage it can get.

That could start at the top of the zone, where Cooney and Gbinije can use their length to patrol the perimeter while denying entry passes. They played with two guards who stood atop the zone and used their exact heights to help Syracuse to the Final Four. They watched those strap in and strap down Michigan’s. They’ve seen, close up, that the zone can win out on the sport’s biggest stage.

Well, almost.

Jesse Dougherty is a Senior Staff Writer at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at jcdoug01@syr.edu or @dougherty_jesse.

Published on April 1, 2016 at 6:35 pm