(Photo Courtesy of Notre Dame Athletics)

It’s a tale as old as… this season.

For what feels like the millionth time this season, the Notre Dame men’s basketball team could not close out a victory.

This was the worst of the bunch.

On the road at Syracuse, the Irish jumped out to a 9-0 advantage and led by as many as 17 points only to blow the lead in the final four minutes of the game to lose 77-69.

The score was not that lopsided, but a double technical and ejection called on a frustrated Micah Shrewsberry with less than a second left in the game gave Syracuse five additional points from the free throw line. Shrewsberry, likely thinking the game was over after a missed Markus Burton three pointer, let out his anger on the officials. It appeared to stem from a call moments earlier that wiped away a game tying bucket as Tae Davis was called for a moving screen.

If all of that wasn’t bad enough, it was former Irish basketball player JJ Starling that did the most damage in the win for the Orange. Starling scored 21 in the win.

Burton led Notre Dame with 28 points, but 22 of those came in the 1st half. The former Penn High School standout struggled in the 2nd half, scoring just 6 points on 2-10 shooting.

As a team, Notre Dame was just 8-25 in the 2nd half. They were 0-5 from 3 in the final 20 minutes. Both of those stats were a massive collapse from the first half when Notre Dame made half its shots, including five trifectas.

The Irish fall to 8-10 overall and 2-5 in the ACC.