Following an 82-80 victory over Notre Dame at the Carrier Dome, a triumvirate of underclassmen from the Syracuse men’s basketball team faced a one-question pop quiz.

‘Does Saturday’s win,’ the Orangemen were asked, ‘make Syracuse the Big East’s team to beat?’

Answering should be no sweat for three players who’ve so far demonstrated a basketball savvy well beyond their years, right?

Well, one passed, one failed and the other left the question blank.

‘Yeah we’re the team to beat,’ sophomore forward Hakim Warrick said, ‘especially given the way we play at home. This is one of the toughest places to play. We know we’ve got a target on our backs.’

Right. Warrick passed.

‘I’m not going to come out and say that,’ a grinning Gerry McNamara said. ‘We’re a great team. That’s what I can say.’

McNamara’s game-winning 3-pointer excused him. He escaped with an incomplete. Besides, it’s not Golden Boy’s personality to trash talk.

That seems more in forward Carmelo Anthony’s realm.

‘Nope, we will never be the team to beat,’ Anthony answered defiantly. ‘We want to be the underdogs.’

The nave freshman better hope for some extra credit. Sooner or later, Anthony will have to fess up to the obvious. No team will take the No. 17 Orangemen lightly. Especially not at home, where Syracuse is 14-0.

Anthony should also study the Big East standings. Thanks to Pittsburgh hiccuping Saturday and falling to Seton Hall, 73-61, the Orangemen slid into first place in the Big East West Division.

In the East Division, Villanova topped Connecticut, 79-70, on Saturday, meaning with its 8-3 mark, Syracuse has the conference’s best record.

If the Orangemen win at Notre Dame on March 4, they have a chance to enter the Big East tournament as the conference’s highest nationally-ranked team. That’s no small feat considering that, at the season’s start, the Associated Press poll ranked Pittsburgh No. 5 and Connecticut No. 15.

Syracuse? It started unranked, mostly because of an inexperienced lineup. Now, SU isn’t fooling anyone.

‘They’re a heck of an offensive team,’ Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey said. ‘They’ve got a lot of guys who know how to take care of the basketball.’

That, perhaps, is the most stunning part of this remarkable season. On this Syracuse team, underclassmen aren’t just first and second options. They’re every option.

Still, Syracuse, which starts two freshmen and two sophomores, routinely shows more poise than its opponents. The Orangemen trailed in eight Big East games and came back to win six.

On Saturday, Notre Dame got 36 points from seniors and 19 from freshmen. The Orangemen’s freshmen, meanwhile, contributed 54 points, while lone senior Kueth Duany added just five.

So perhaps it’s fitting that McNamara, a freshman, hit the game-winning 3-pointer, while Notre Dame senior Matt Carroll managed only a meager layup attempt that SU center Jeremy McNeil swatted away with five seconds remaining.

More telling, Syracuse coughed up four turnovers to Notre Dame’s 14.

Considering the Orangemen’s still-wary personas, it’s understandable why Anthony wants SU to be anonymous. It’s easier to be the team that comes out of nowhere, the one no one overprepares for, the one that, every once in a while, catches an opponent napping.

‘We know,’ Warrick said, ‘that we’re not going to get anything easy now.’

Certainly not with that big target on their backs.

Pete Iorizzo is the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at pniorizz@syr.edu.

Published on February 15, 2003 at 12:00 pm