And then there was one.

With 9 minutes, 32 seconds left in Sunday’s Midwest Regional final, Syracuse was down by 15 points, and its chances of beating Virginia had sunk to just 1.4 percent.

But the Orange roared back and closed out the Cavaliers by putting on a high-risk, high-reward clinic, demonstrating the full range of munitions that underdogs need to take down Giants. Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim turned on the press to disrupt Virginia’s flow -- and, just as important, turned it off when Virginia started getting easy looks. Trevor Cooney forced steals, Malachi Richardson sank 3-pointers, Tyler Roberson hit the offensive boards and Tyler Lydon blocked shots.

Syracuse went through a long stretch of unconscious shooting that was both amazing and necessary -- Virginia had strangled the Orange for the first three quarters of the game. Here’s what’s really telling: The Cavaliers still outshot Syracuse on 2-point attempts, on 3-point attempts and from the foul line. But the Orange outrebounded Virginia at both ends and won the turnover battle.

That’s how David knocks off Goliath.

So Syracuse is the one Giant Killer left standing in the tournament, and joins the small pantheon of double-digit seeds to make the Final Four.

As professional underdog whisperers, these are basically our favorite teams of all time, and if you’re in the mood to keep soaking in upsets, you can revisit our analysis of George Mason in 2006, VCU in 2011 and Wichita State in 2013.

It's important to stress how much sense it makes for Syracuse to have survived to the third weekend of the tournament, no matter how strange it seems to see Boeheim trying on a glass slipper.

For one thing, the Orange were significantly better than their 19-13 regular-season record indicated. They played a tough schedule (15th-strongest in the nation, according to BPI), and went 4-5 in close or overtime games.

So while there was controversy over whether they should have even made the NCAA field, Syracuse was actually two full points per 100 possessions stronger than the average 10-seed since 2007. And as we mentioned when examining Wounded Lions two months ago, “teams from multi-bid conferences that have taken some hits and piled up some losses but are still strong ... are sure to be especially important this season, when there’s so much parity among Giants.”

As we also concluded, big-time programs that usually operate as Gambling Giants -- focusing on the perimeter -- are the teams with the best chance to succeed as underdogs if they happen to draw low seeds. And the Orange have an especially effective bag of tricks: They force turnovers, launch bombs, hit the offensive boards and play at a deliberate pace.

Our statistical model estimates these traits add a whopping 9.6 points per 100 possessions to Syracuse’s strength in matchups against Giants, the fifth-highest “secret sauce” for any Killer that has won a tournament game since 2007. The name Syracuse might not scream “Giant Killer,” but the Orange’s style of play sure does.

Put it all together, and Syracuse had a Giant Killer rating of 58.9 entering the tournament, meaning a 58.9 percent chance to beat an average Giant. That was the highest GK rating for any potential Killer in the field, and is actually the second-highest mark our model has ever seen. (Ill-fated Belmont rated at 62.8 in 2011.) But that might not matter come Saturday night, because UNC is no average Giant.

Let's consider the matchup:

No. 1 North Carolina (Giant rating: 97.7, on a scale from zero to 100 percent chance of beating an average Killer) vs. No. 10 Syracuse (Giant Killer rating: 58.9, on a scale of zero to 100 percent chance of beating an average Giant)

Upset chance: 14.4 percent

(In the four most similar GK matchups to North Carolina-Syracuse since 2007, the Giants went 2-2, outscoring Killers by an average of 12.2 points per 100 possessions.)

The trouble with continuing to ride the Orange and their remarkable GK strengths is that there will be another team on the floor in the Final Four. And what Syracuse is to Killers, North Carolina is to Giants.

The Tar Heels’ “Secret Sauce” as a Giant -- the stuff that makes teams more or less vulnerable to upsets -- is a monstrous 8.6 points per 100 possessions. So not only are the Heels really good, they are built to beat lesser teams by minimizing foes’ high-variance options: The Heels rarely turn the ball over, hold their own on the defensive glass, play at a fast pace and then abuse teams on the offensive boards, where they sport a ridiculous 40.3 rate (third in the nation). They don’t leave foes many avenues for an upset.

For most of the season, it seemed like the way to beat Carolina would be to pack it in on defense and force the Heels to hit jump shots. In ACC games, UNC took just 18.4 percent of its shots from deep, making only 28.3 percent of those attempts.

That has changed in the tourney, though. Carolina has attempted 27.6 percent of its shots from 3-point range (still slightly below the national average) and has hit 38.2 percent of them. Much of that work has come from Marcus Paige, who had hit just 32.3 percent of his 3-pointers leading into the tourney, but is 13-for-27 (48.1 percent) in UNC’s four tourney wins.

This info leads to a series of questions: Which set of statistics do you trust? Is UNC hot right now? Is that sustainable? Is the regular season even a large enough sample of games either (a lot of analytics folks will tell you it isn’t)?

Conventional wisdom suggests that Syracuse plays some sort of rec league 2-3 zone, in which every guy stands in the same spot and offenses have a clear view from 3-point range. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Fact is, Boeheim tweaks his D the same way other coaches adjust their man-to-man schemes. Sometimes they trap in the corners. Sometimes they pressure the wings.

Against the Heels, turnovers won’t come easily. So it would make sense to focus on UNC’s biggest strength -- offensive rebounding -- which is typically the weakest aspect of the zone. If Boeheim can make enough adjustments to get his post players matched up on a Carolina player when a shot goes up, then Syracuse has a chance, even if that means giving up a lot of clean looks from 3-point range. The alternative is worse, as Carolina’s best offense would often be a missed shot.

The Orange have to hope that Carolina goes cold (which happened in the regular season, when UNC made just 6-of-25 3s in a five-point win). Then, Syracuse must launch plenty of its own treys at the other end, and hope that the ball bounces its way more often than usual. Do that, and Syracuse has a chance. Otherwise, a mighty Killer may finally run into a warrior with too much armor.

Thanks to Liz Bouzarth, John Harris and Kevin Hutson of Furman University for research assistance.