NEW YORK – For five games, the Syracuse men’s basketball team whipped up the same ingredients to go with a smothering defense to become the hottest team in the Big East: Poise down the stretch, clutch shots from Gerry McNamara and rugged toughness.

In the second half of its Big East tournament quarterfinal game against Boston College, No. 23 Syracuse maintained the rock solid defense that catapulted SU on its five-game winning streak to end the regular season. But it threw the other three tenets out the window, and with those went the momentum they spawned.

After building an 11-point first half lead, fourth-seeded Syracuse faltered in the second half and lost, 57-54, to fifth-seeded BC at Madison Square Garden on Thursday afternoon. The Eagles will face Pittsburgh at the Garden tomorrow night at 7. The Orangemen will head back to Syracuse, their only chore now to await its draw in the NCAA Tournament.

‘We didn’t make the plays down the stretch,’ SU center Craig Forth said. ‘It’s very surprising. We should have definitely won this game. We just didn’t make the plays we needed to.’

That was most true in the game’s final minutes. Twice, Syracuse (21-7, 11-6 Big East) had a chance to take the lead back with less than 35 seconds left. But both opportunities ended fruitlessly with the ball in the hands of Hakim Warrick – not McNamara, who has delivered game-clinching shots multiple times in his brief SU career.

But SU had reason to put the outcome in Warrick’s expansive hands. Uka Agbai, who had four fouls, guarded Warrick. And Warrick was clearly more athletic than either of BC’s other two big men, Craig Smith and Jared Dudley.

‘I can understand the mismatch,’ BC coach Al skinner said. ‘Warrick had a big game when we played them up there. We understood they were going to go to Warrick.’

More simply stated:

‘None of those three can guard him,’ SU coach Jim Boeheim said.

On SU’s last two chances, they did. On both of SU’s possessions, Warrick barreled to the rim but, with multiple defenders draped on him, couldn’t convert. After the first miss, which happened with 20 seconds left, Smith missed two free throws. After the second, with six seconds left, Warrick laid on the Garden baseline for five seconds while Smith strolled to the other end, where this time he hit both free throws.

‘I just missed the shot, simple as that,’ Warrick said. ‘I felt real bad that I let my team down. That’s the way it happens, I guess.’

Warrick, who scored nine points in the first half but finished with just 12, shot 4 of 13. His meltdown contradicted the second-half dominance of Smith, who finished with a game-high 22 points.

Instead of trying to shoot over SU’s 2-3 zone, BC head coach Al Skinner stuck with his game plan of attacking SU’s defense from the inside. The Eagles pounded the ball to 6-7 thoroughbred Craig Smith down the stretch, who kept BC (23-8, 12-6) in the game by scoring nine straight points.

Smith started his personal run with 10 minutes remaining and BC down six. By the time he finished, the Eagles had weathered a Syracuse mini-run and a Gerry McNamara 3-pointer and found themselves down only 50-46 with 4:47 left in the game.

‘We just tried to get it inside,’ Smith said with as he smiled wide, revealing a mouthful of braces.

When that method of muscling the Orangemen didn’t work, the Eagles usually went and got their misses. Boston College outrebounded Syracuse 24-9 in the second half. Dudley, a freshman, grabbed a game-high 11 and Smith snared 10. Josh Pace, a 6-foot-5 forward, led SU with seven rebounds. Warrick, at 6-foot-8, and the 7-foot Forth finished with four boards a piece. ‘They just killed us on the backboards in the second half,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said.

By doing so, BC erased what was an eight-point deficit with 12 minutes remaining. After grabbing a deep rebound and taking it coast-to-coast for a three-point play, BC guard Jermaine Watson tied the game with 2:51 left.

After McNamara converted another three-point play, Jared Dudley hit four straight free throws to give the Eagles a 55-54 lead, its first of the game, with 37 seconds left.

‘We know that we had our opportunities to win the game,’ SU guard Josh Pace said. ‘It wasn’t like we were down going into the last stretch. We made some mistakes mentally that cost us the game.’

After playing with the most poise and confidence Syracuse had all season in its recent run, those breakdowns came as a surprise. While it once appeared the Orangemen would swagger into next week’s NCAA Tournament, they’ll now stumble in.

‘It’s a wake-up call,’ Forth said. ‘We expected to be here until Saturday. If you lose, you go home. We need to keep that in mind for next week.’

Published on March 10, 2004 at 12:00 pm