HOUSTON — There’s always been another shot for Trevor Cooney. No matter if he won or lost, was angry or sad, tired or full of juice, he could always count on the opportunity to be alone, space out and launch a basketball toward the rim. The opportunity to, in his own way, relax and breathe.

Once he was old enough to be outside on his own, he’d shoot in his family’s Wilmington, Delaware, driveway until his parents called him in. Sometimes he went until 9 or 10 p.m. In time, the mash-up of ball on concrete, ball on rim and ball swishing through the worn net became the neighborhood’s late-night soundtrack.

When he was in middle school, Cooney would jog onto the court after University of Delaware games and start hoisting jumpers. He rarely left the Sanford (Delaware) School gym while his reputation as an athletic shooter started to swell, and head coach Stan Waterman gave Cooney a key so he and his brother Matt could sculpt an around-the-clock routine. Then he carried that to Syracuse, where for five years he shot over every road block. Every bit of criticism. Every defender who blanketed him away from the ball, leaned into his body and made it a suicide mission to not let him get off an open shot.

That’s always been Cooney’s life — shooting and shooting and more shooting — and another chapter ended for him at NRG Stadium on Saturday night. After half a decade, Cooney’s last college game was the Orange’s (23-14, 9-9 Atlantic Coast) 83-66 loss to top-seeded North Carolina (33-6, 14-4) in the Final Four. He scored a game-high 22 points. He made half his shots. He crafted his own ending, one month after a missed 3 at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., seemed to do that for him by pushing SU out of the NCAA Tournament field.

“It means everything to me,” Cooney said of finishing his season in Houston instead of anywhere else. “I mean making it to the Final Four is really, really tough. There are a lot of good teams that didn’t make it this far and we made it this far with everybody saying we can’t make it this far.”

Cooney became a lightning rod in Syracuse, cheered for every make but especially ridiculed for every miss. Being recruited as a shooter carried expectations he never shook — in part, some say, centered around him being the next Gerry McNamara — and he always took them in stride. His numbers, defense atop the zone and intricate effects on Syracuse’s offense made him an effective shooting guard. His inability to hit the big shots, starting on the final possession against Michigan the last time SU made the Final Four in 2013, continually had fans forgetting the positive aspects of his game.

With Cooney, like most players but especially shooters, perception fluctuated on a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately scale. So when he missed that game-winning 3 against the Panthers in the ACC tournament on March 9, the shot that was supposed to decide if the Orange would dance into March Madness or mosey into the NIT, the book on him was just about closed.

His shot went wide left and left him an inch or two from program lore. But when Syracuse tip toed into the bracket five days later, Cooney was given one more shot yet again.

“If you have a shot at the end of the game and you think that game is going to make it into the Tournament and you miss that shot, his whole demeanor after that Pitt game was certainly very depressed,” said Matt Cooney on Sunday. “That was a sad moment. When you think everything is hanging on that shot and the shot didn’t go in, that sucked. He was certainly feeling that.

“Then talking to him after the announcement of them making the Tournament, you could just tell that someone had taken the weight of the world off his shoulders and told him he didn’t let the team down any more. They had a whole new life.”

Syracuse’s improbable run through the Tournament, starting with a win over Dayton in St. Louis and ending with the loss to UNC on Saturday, held a handful of stand-out moments. Michael Gbinije’s game-winning layup against Gonzaga. Tyler Lydon’s game-sealing block two possesions later. Lydon’s shoeless 3 against Virginia in the Elite 8. Malachi Richardson scoring 21 second-half points to come back and beat the Cavaliers later that night.

None of these moments directly include Cooney, but his contributions were both steady and integral throughout the four wins. He was Syracuse’s most consistent shooter, making 2-of-5 3s against Dayton, 4-of-7 against Middle Tennessee State, 1-for-2 against Gonzaga and then 4-of-11 from the field against UVA. His defense atop the zone and full-court press were key in each victory, most notably in the two come-from-behind wins in Chicago. And against North Carolina, he mixed up drives to the rim, mid-range pull-ups and long 3s to give the Orange a fighting change.

It was a showcase of his evolution, and it came at the perfect time.

“I saw a guy out there that needed help and didn’t want to lose,” said Gbinije, who scored 12 points, missed all five of his 3 attempts and fouled out with 1:25 left in SU’s Final Four game. “I feel like I let him down a little bit. He didn’t want to lose. That’s Trevor, man. That’s just Trevor.”

After the final buzzer sounded, Cooney led a jagged line of Syracuse players off the court. He angled his walk so he could give every fan a high-five. His eyes stayed straight ahead. His cheeks were beat red. The last ounces of sweat dripped off his face and onto the black carpet. When he ducked into the tunnel and out of sight, his final career numbers took shape.

Two Final Fours, 281 career 3s (third most in program history) and 1,437 career points. If you looked at those on their own, you’d stitch that player into the fabric of Syracuse basketball’s history. But that’s not what Cooney wants you to do. He doesn’t use the numbers to define himself. All he wanted Saturday night, with a five-year career behind him, was a shot at a national championship.

A shot is all he ever wanted, and now they’ve all run out.

“I view myself on wins and losses. I don’t view myself on the stats that I had. I’ve said this to other reporters and I’ll say it to you, but you guys can write what you want,” Cooney said. “I’m so proud of my career and I was so proud that I was a part of this group and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“I got to play for Syracuse for five years and I got to go to two Final Fours and I’ve been a part of extremely, extremely good teams and I’m leaving this program a better man than when I came in.”

And after all that time, he did the writing himself.

Published on April 4, 2016 at 1:17 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse