Carmelo Anthony glanced at an index card filled with goals before last night’s exhibition contest against Nike Elite.

Five rebounds. One steal. Eight deflections.

Too bad there wasn’t one for points. He might have doubled it.

Anthony scored 37 points, leading the Syracuse men’s basketball team to a 93-74 win over Nike Elite in front of 6,330 at the Carrier Dome. And just for good measure, he met all the other goals as well.

‘Unless you’re deaf, blind and dumb, you have to be happy with his performance,’ Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘We need other guys to step up.’

Anthony scored as many points by himself as Nike Elite had in either half, shooting 14 of 22 from the field. And he did it quietly.

‘How many did he have?’ guard Josh Pace asked about the offensive outburst.

‘Did he really?’ questioned Gerry McNamara.

Anthony’s most dominant run began at the start of the second half, when he reeled off seven straight points. He began the spree by converting a layup off a loose ball and followed that with a breakaway dunk. The capper was a three-pointer over the head of a Nike Elite defender Exree Hipp. Later in the half, Anthony scored eight consecutive points for SU.

‘He’s one of those guys who can score any which way,’ freshman Billy Edelin said. ‘He’s going to go inside. He’ll find a three every now and then. After a while, the points stack up.’

Against Nike Elite, Anthony stacked points by using every method. He finished 6 for 6 from the free-throw line, 3 for 8 on three-pointers and converted a pair of putbacks on five offensive rebounds. He had nine boards for the game.

Even Anthony wasn’t sure of his totals after the contest.

‘I didn’t realize I scored that many points,’ Anthony said. ‘In my first college game, I’d say I met my goals. That’s a pretty big accomplishment.’

Boeheim, though, saw a negative to Anthony’s dominant performance. Rather than run through their motion offense, the Orangemen watched Anthony. The result was a motion offense that was, at times, motionless.

Centers Craig Forth and Jeremy McNeil were victimized by the lack of movement, turning the ball over a combined seven times.

‘Craig had four turnovers, but three of those weren’t really his,’ Boeheim said. ‘We didn’t really help him. That was a result of people not moving. People tended to let him do it all.’

While the rest of the team failed to follow Anthony’s example, Boeheim was impressed with the play of freshman Gerry McNamara. McNamara, who started at point guard, played conservatively during his 28 minutes, avoiding reckless drives into the lane while amassing four assists to no turnovers.

‘I was a little conservative,’ McNamara said, ‘but I think I had to be in my first game. I didn’t want to turn the ball over. As we get into the season, I’ll show some of the other things I can do.’

McNamara, who was told he would start on Monday night, also split time at point guard with Pace.

Pace, who also played at shooting guard, appeared equally adept at handling both positions, weaving his way into the lane and scoring 12 points on an assortment of floating jumpers.

Lost in the mix was Edelin, who played the fewest minutes, 17, among the guards. Edelin scored all six of his points in the second half after amassing only five minutes in the opening stanza.

‘It was a toss-up between me and Billy,’ McNamara said. ‘We both worked hard in practice.’

Published on November 5, 2002 at 12:00 pm