You’re a purist. You like three-passes-before-you-shoot basketball, Chuck Taylors and shorts hemmed north of the knees. You’ll take Norman Dale and Bobby Knight over any hotshot with an Italian suit and a tin of hair gel.

And, most of all, you hate the dunk. Heck, you say, they ought to outlaw the thing, raise the basket to 11 feet if that’s what it takes. Make ’em keep their elbow in and use the square. Two points is, after all, two points, isn’t it?

Hakim Warrick and the Syracuse men’s basketball team, it would be safe to offer, are not purists. And Warrick, tomahawk by tomahawk, is proving that two doesn’t always equal two. Because when Warrick unleashes one of his hide-the-women-and-children slams, it energizes him, a team and an entire building.

After all, it wasn’t a textbook bank shot that revitalized the Orangemen last year against Notre Dame at the Carrier Dome, down by double digits early in the second half. When Gerry McNamara tossed Warrick an alley-oop, it wasn’t just another two points on the scoreboard. The dunk awoke a slumbering Dome and ignited a furious comeback.

‘When you make a great play and you come down and he dunks it, it builds all the enthusiasm,’ SU assistant coach Mike Hopkins said. ‘It gets everybody excited.’

Other than Warrick’s last-second block in the national championship game, what’s the most indelible image from SU’s title run last spring? That came when Warrick turned Texas’ Royal Ivey into a bug on his rim-rattling windshield.

Late in the second half against the Longhorns in the national semifinal, Warrick dribbled down the baseline. Ivey, Texas’ best defensive player, rotated over to stop Warrick.

Bad decision – let’s just leave it at that. You know what happens next, anyway, so we’ll spare Ivey the additional embarrassment. After all, that’s what Warrick would want.

‘I’m glad I made it,’ Warrick said. ‘But I kind of felt sorry for him.’

During tryouts for USA Basketball this summer, North Carolina’s Raymond Felton approached Warrick and asked, ‘Man, who was that? Why’d you have to do that to him?’

Especially after a picture of the dunk’s R-rated conclusion – with Warrick hanging on the rim and Ivey’s head tucked between the power forward’s legs – wound up in Slam magazine and circulated across the Internet.

Look at that picture, and you can see the slam’s importance. Try to peel your eyes off of Ivey’s straddled head and look at Josh Pace in the background – you won’t find a picture of Pace more excited even after Syracuse won.

So would a Warrick lay-up that produced the same pair of points have made the same impact?

‘Not even close,’ Hopkins said.

Though Ivey received the most famous facial in recent history, he can take solace in the fact that Warrick’s list of victims is longer than Santa Claus’ list of kids and extends to each one of his teammates. That includes Jeremy McNeil, whose right arm serves as a red light for fast breaks.

‘Before I committed, I was like, ‘Wow, he can jump.’ ‘ freshman Terrence Roberts said. ‘After I committed I was like, ‘I hope he don’t think he’s gonna be doing that to me in practice next year.’ ‘

Rest assured, he has.

‘He gets everybody,’ Roberts said.

Warrick’s even gotten himself. The first time Warrick dunked, playing for a summer league team in his hometown of Philadelphia heading into his sophomore year of high school, he slammed so hard that he fractured his wrist.

Since then, Warrick’s dunking has been slightly smoother. Last season, Warrick threw down 80 dunks, tops on Syracuse and 45 percent of his total field goals.

Thanks to his 7-foot-1 wingspan, Warrick punctuates post moves with slams when most players have to settle for a lay-up or a jumper. When Warrick backs an opponent down, his uncanny length seems to shrink the lane. Syracuse assistant coach Troy Weaver compared Warrick’s rangy body to James Worthy’s.

The second key to Warrick’s dunking success lies in his oversized hands. Because of his huge mitts – the biggest on SU – he can palm the ball one-handed and navigate it through a maze of arms guarding the basket – even in midflight.

‘Sometimes, it really doesn’t look like I can make it to the rim,’ Warrick said. ‘But I know what I’m capable of. Sometimes I just reach to the rim when a lot of other players can’t.’

Warrick is such a physical freak that sometimes he floors himself with what he can do. Until he watched himself on film as a freshman, he didn’t realize the length of his limbs. Every once in a while, Warrick will take off expecting to lay the ball in but halfway to the rim realize he can dunk instead.

And that’s just in games. Sometimes, if they have the energy at the end of practice, the Orangemen gather around a Manley Field House hoop and take turns dunking. After Warrick’s turn – usually a throwdown from the free throw line – the slamming ceases.

Dunking in practice wouldn’t exactly warm the cockles of a traditionalist’s heart. But with each time Warrick posterizes an opponent, he dispels the belief that dunking is just showing off.

‘Just to see the fans and all my teammates get excited, that’s what really gets me excited,’ Warrick said. ‘That’s why I really try to make big and try to get big dunks.’

Published on November 20, 2003 at 12:00 pm