They are moments in Syracuse men’s basketball history.

Carmelo Anthony scoring 20 points against Kansas to lift the Orangemen to the 2003 national title. Hakim Warrick exploding for 31 points against Villanova in 2005 in his hometown of Philadelphia. Brief flashes never to be relived again.

Warrick hasn’t worn a Syracuse jersey in more than a year. Anthony hasn’t in three years. By now they should just be names in SU’s record book.

But Anthony and Warrick aren’t finished helping the Orange win – at least indirectly. The Syracuse commitment class of 2007 has a familiar geography to it, the distinct flavor of Anthony and Warrick. Three of the four members of that class – Donte Green, Antonio ‘Scoop’ Jardine and Rick Jackson – are from Baltimore, Anthony’s hometown, or Philadelphia, where Warrick grew up. The duo’s success started a Syracuse recruiting base in the cities.

‘Already everybody’s talking about Syracuse,’ said Jardine, a junior at Philadelphia’s Neumann-Goretti High School. ‘We’re not even up there yet. More and more people are watching Syracuse games now. My little brother wants to go there, and he didn’t know anything about Syracuse.’

Jardine credited his decision to come to Syracuse to the Hall of Fame credentials of head coach Jim Boeheim and what he thought was the best fit for him athletically and academically. Still, Warrick’s performance at the Wachovia Center in 2005 and during his entire career at SU gives the Orange instant credibility in the Philadelphia area.

Jackson, Jardine’s best friend and teammate, certainly was influenced by Jardine’s decision to commit to the Orange. But Warrick’s success didn’t hurt when SU offered a scholarship to Jackson.

‘It had an effect,’ Jackson said. ‘We play the same position. I kinda play like him. So I think I could have the same success.’

It’s the same all around the country. A player sees great success at a school, and soon more players from that area believe they can do the same thing.

In 1989, California native Adonis Jordan went to Kansas to play for then-KU head coach Roy Williams. Jordan’s move to the Midwest created a pipeline from Southern California to Lawrence, Kan., including eventual NBA first-round picks Jacque Vaughn, Paul Pierce and Drew Gooden.

It’s just the pipeline SU hopes it’s established in Baltimore and Philadelphia when Jardine, Jackson and Green committed in the fall of 2005.

Josh Pratt, the basketball coach at Towson Catholic High School in Baltimore, has seen it before. Pratt currently coaches Green, but he’s mentored players who’ve already seen success, like Connecticut’s Rudy Gay.

When a player like Anthony or Gay excel, other players from Baltimore want to emulate that success.

‘Rudy (Gay), Juan (Dixon) and Carmelo – all the Baltimore kids are looking at those three players as role models,’ Pratt said. ‘It’s like, ‘If they can do it, I can.”

While Anthony and Warrick may have raised awareness of Syracuse in their hometowns, Pratt believes they only have a minimal effect on the final commitment of high school players.

Such was the case with Green. When Anthony signed with Syracuse in 2002, a signing party was held, where information about Syracuse was handed out to the attendees. Green didn’t go to the party, but he said it was the first time Syracuse was discussed in the community.

Green’s final decision, like Jardine’s, came down to academics and the atmosphere of the basketball program. He said Syracuse assistant coach Rob Murphy, who recruited Green, never mentioned Anthony’s name.

Green is now working on convincing his cousin, who is a sophomore at Towson Catholic, to come to Syracuse.

‘Before Carmelo, we didn’t know anything about Syracuse,’ Green said. ‘It got Syracuse known. (Carmelo’s signing) had a big deal to do with my signing.’

And Green, Jardine and Jackson’s commitments could be the beginning of a long-standing relationship between SU basketball and Philadelphia and Baltimore.

John Mosco, an assistant coach at Neumann-Goretti, deals with a lot of college coaches. But he doesn’t remember seeing or even hearing about Syracuse’s presence in Philadelphia until the Orangemen nabbed a skinny kid named Hakim Warrick from Friends Central High School.

Just as it later happened in Baltimore, SU established itself in Philadelphia.

‘Once they got Hakim in Philly, it opened the floodgates,’ Mosco said. ‘It got their presence known. They tried to get (Villanova’s) Kyle Lowry and that built them up more. I don’t remember them ever having a presence before that.

‘It will help (SU) down the road. Scoop and Rick have to do their part. It could be another name (Syracuse) can drop.’

Mosco recognized an important hitch in Syracuse’s connection to Baltimore and Philadelphia. Anthony and Warrick are both first-round picks in the NBA Draft and were All-America college players.

For the Orange to gain more attention in those cities, it needs the new round of commitments to be just as successful.

Carlton Carrington, the director of the Baltimore-based Team Melo, an AAU team, doesn’t buy the pipeline effect. He said it’s an individual decision, and each player has a different set of needs.

It was just a matter of chance Syracuse fit Green so well, Carrington said. He points to the seven players, including four scholarship athletes, graduating from SU in 2007. As those players leave, it opens more room for Green to slide into a prominent role.

‘He has a chance to step in right away and play,’ Carrington said. ‘If Terrence Roberts was a sophomore, Donte wouldn’t be going to Syracuse.

‘If the situation is right, the kids make the decision to go there. Just because Carmelo had success doesn’t mean Donte Green will have success.’

But Syracuse is feeding off the success of Anthony and Warrick. It has three players anxious to equal Anthony and Warrick’s status in SU history.

Green, Jardine and Jackson all have the ability to do so. All three are ranked in the top 15 at their positions by scout.com. Green is considered a five-star recruit. Jardine and Jackson just returned from Mannheim, Germany, where they were among the 10 high school juniors to represent the United States at the 2006 Albert Schweitzer Basketball Tournament.

Those waiting to see whether Green, Jardine and Jackson can replicate the success of Anthony and Warrick – influencing another generation of basketball players in Baltimore and Philadelphia – will have to wait until the three arrive at Syracuse in August 2007.

But SU can rest easy for now knowing the accolades of two former players have helped it bring in a promising class of commitments and the opportunity exists for the Orange to compound that success.

‘For a kid from Baltimore, Carmelo goes to Syracuse and wins the national championship as a freshman,’ Pratt said. ‘He was very successful there. It’s the same with Juan and Rudy. When you are from the area and you grow up and see these guys, you want to be where they are.’

Published on April 25, 2006 at 12:00 pm