PITTSBURGH – After doing something he’s never done before – go a full 40 minutes without a single field goal – Gerry McNamara did something he’s very accustomed to doing – delivering a huge basket when the Syracuse men’s basketball team needs it most.

McNamara scored zero points in the first half and just four in the second in SU’s 49-46 win over Pittsburgh yesterday. But McNamara discarded those meager stats to score five of SU’s seven points in overtime, enough to lead SU to its biggest win of the season.

McNamara shot 0-for-7 in the game’s first 40 minutes. But the poor performance didn’t affect his play down the stretch.

‘Has it ever?’ McNamara asked. ‘You have to keep your head in. I’ll play 39 minutes and not do a thing. But in that minute, I’m going to do everything in my power to make something happen.’

In yesterday’s case, it was five minutes. McNamara opened overtime with a 3-pointer that was arguably the game’s biggest shot and closed it with two free throws that made Syracuse breathe easy.

It was the 3-pointer, though, that lifted SU to the win. Hakim Warrick held the ball in the post with the shot clock running low, and McNamara wheeled around the 3-point arc. He called for the ball and nailed a 3, his first – and only – basket of the game.

‘He screamed my name,’ Warrick said. ‘I didn’t even see him, I just heard him. I threw it over there, and I knew it was going in.’

Warrick’s confidence in McNamara shows McNamara’s propensity for late game heroics, because he had shown no ability to make a jump shot earlier. But McNamara, a believer that the only way to shake a slump is to shoot your way out, relied on history for confidence. Just last weekend, he beat Georgetown with a buzzer-beating 3 after having an awful shooting day.

‘Gerry can miss every shot he takes,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘But he can make one when it counts for you.’

As bad as he was against Georgetown in the first 39 minutes – shooting 36 percent and scoring 13 points – he was worse against Pitt.

Poor shooting, though, can’t be blamed for all of that. First, McNamara had to fend off Julius Page, one of the conference’s most suffocating defenders. Boeheim decided to use as much of the shot clock as he could, which he said makes it hard for a shooter to find his rhythm.

‘Julius is a great defender,’ McNamara said. ‘But the thing was, we took a lot off the shot clock. There were shots with the shot clock winding down, a lot of forced shots I wouldn’t take. I’m frustrated I didn’t make more, but when it comes down to it, you have to keep your head in the game.’

 

Published on February 29, 2004 at 12:00 pm