NEW YORK – Hakim Warrick flashed a smile – a big, goofy one in fact – Thursday night as he discussed the Syracuse men’s basketball team earning another chance to beat Connecticut.

Within seconds, that smile faded and a look of seriousness and gloom overtook the senior’s face. A reporter had just asked how another loss to UConn would affect SU’s psyche. Warrick answered quickly and candidly. A third loss would crush it.

Warrick, of course, won’t have to find out for sure what a third loss to Connecticut would feel like. Instead, an overwhelming feeling of joy spread though SU’s locker room following its 67-63 defeat of Connecticut Friday night at Madison Square Garden.

Sure, it felt great to finally beat the Huskies, a team Warrick and his senior teammates have lost to five times. More importantly, though, the 16th-ranked Orange finally secured a marquee win – a marquee win that’s slipped through its finger tips on several occasions.

The Orange had UConn and Pittsburgh each close to defeat at home. SU threw away both opportunities in the final minutes. In December, the Orange’s free-throw shooting cost it a shot at defeating Oklahoma State. Syracuse barely missed a road upset at Boston College, too.

Until Friday, Syracuse had defeated just one team currently ranked in the Top 25 – Villanova.

Not only did the Orange snag a marquee win. It dominated the Huskies – winners 10 straight Big East games coming in – for the game’s majority.

‘It’s a chip off our shoulder,’ Syracuse forward Darryl Watkins said.

It couldn’t have come at a better time. Until Thursday against Rutgers, Syracuse had played miserably. Losers of five of nine entering the tournament, SU’s NCAA Tournament seed dropped and its odds of an early NCAA exit skyrocketed.

Syracuse has now put together back-to-back strong performances, and tonight has a chance at its first Big East tournament title since 1991-92. That chip Watkins referred to is gone and the Orange couldn’t have picked a better time to peak.

‘We’re coming together at the right time,’ junior guard Gerry McNamara said.

Sort of like SU’s 2002-03 title run. That year the Orange won seven straight games to close out the regular season, and it’s only two losses in February and March came to – you guessed it – Connecticut.

Not only is SU coming together, it’s making strides at erasing the problems that have plagued it throughout the season.

Most notably rebounding and free-throw shooting.

SU’s been outrebounded just once in its last five games. The Orange crushed Connecticut on the boards Friday, save the game’s last few minutes when the Huskies closed the gap.

Though the Orange shot just 64 percent from the free-throw stripe Friday, Syracuse has shot 70 percent or better in four of its last seven games. Thursday, against Rutgers, the Orange fired at 82 percent.

‘I think (Friday night) we showed we can beat (an elite team),’ Warrick said. ‘Especially on a big stage like this, just less than two weeks from them blowing us out. To come back and respond like this, I think it says a lot about our team.’

After SU’s win over Rutgers, SU head coach Jim Boeheim declared Connecticut was playing as well as any team in the country. He said it would be as tough a test as Syracuse would face in the NCAA Tournament.

If that’s the case, test passed. Syracuse is rolling at just the right time.

Michael Licker is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at mjlicker@syr.edu.

Published on March 12, 2005 at 12:00 pm