Hakim Warrick knew it was over when he stepped on the court. Josh Pace knew well before that.

Both Pace and Warrick figured that the Syracuse men’s basketball team would dominate Cornell athletically long before the final buzzer of SU’s 85-62 victory.

‘You just sensed a mismatch,’ Warrick said. ‘You just sensed they couldn’t match us athletically.’

Warrick is the best example of the Orangemen’s athletic advantage.

A beanpole of a power forward, Warrick’s 6-foot-8 frame – which plays more like 6-foot-11 considering the length of his arms – stood 2 inches talker than Cornell power forward Grant Harrell, who attempted to guard him. Warrick ran the court as quickly as any Cornell guard, and jumped about as high as two CU players put together.

‘He’s just too big and too quick for these guys,’ Boeheim said. ‘He should have a good game against these guys.

The Big Red never found a way to counter the Orangemen’s athleticism, as Warrick converted 9 of 13 shot opportunities and scored a season-high 20 points. Warrick’s scoring display featured an array of awe-inspiring moves.

On the game’s first basket, he backed down Harrell, spun, and leapt toward the Carrier Dome roof, reaching over Harrell and dropping the ball into the basket. Two possessions later, he snared a poor pass with one outstretched hand before repeating the same move.

Later in the game he’d bring the crowd to its feet — and Cornell to its knees — by making three steals and leaping from the free-throw line to complete three identical breakaway dunks.

Warrick’s first dunk punctuated a 12-2 run that allowed Syracuse to take a 19-14 lead it never relinquished. Minutes later, a second slam highlighted a 9-3 run, leaving the score 28-17.

‘To see Hakim take off from the free-throw line like that is amazing,’ senior Kueth Duany said. ‘He might be the best dunker from the Big East.’

While Warrick insists he has added a short-range jump shot to his arsenal, he hasn’t shown it yet, and didn’t need to against Cornell.

‘I’m not going to go out there and shoot 1,000 jump shots when I can have a layup every time,’ Warrick said. ‘If it’s there and they’re just giving it to me, I’ll take it.’

That was a good thing for the Orangemen, who received poor shooting performances from freshmen Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara and senior Kueth Duany.

Syracuse’s top three scorers shot a combined 13-of-35, although Anthony led the team in scoring for the fourth time in four games with 21 points.

‘This was the first game we shot the ball poorly,’ Boeheim said. ‘Fortunately we did enough things to win, but we don’t want to have too many games where they shoot like this.’

Despite the height and athleticism advantages, Syracuse never buried Cornell. Early in the second half, Syracuse’s defense – which was much improved from its win over Colgate – relaxed and allowed guard Cody Toppert to nail three straight three-pointers to cut the lead to nine during a 13-point second-half run.

‘We knew he was their best shooter, and we didn’t get out on him,’ Duany said. ‘We can’t let one guy single-handedly dominate us. It’s just effort. We didn’t make the effort to go out there and get him.’

The Orangemen held the Big Red to 9 of 30 on three-point attempts, including 2 of 12 in the first half.

SU was frustrated by its inability to dominate Cornell on the boards. The Orangemen were outrebounded, 16-14, on the offensive glasss by the not-so-Big Red. Rather than rely on technique, the Orangemen tried to use their athletic ability on the glass.

‘We knew we had more talent coming into the game,’ Pace said. ‘But there’s still things we need to work on. We weren’t boxing out, we were trying to just jump over them.’

Published on December 7, 2002 at 12:00 pm