Billy Edelin couldn’t figure it out. As the sophomore point guard sat on the Syracuse men’s basketball team’s bench and watched minute after minute drain off the Carrier Dome clock Wednesday night, Edelin pondered why Louie McCroskey, his freshman understudy, received more court time than him.

‘Usually coach (Jim Boeheim) will be getting on me,’ Edelin said. ‘But he wasn’t even mad. He just didn’t put me back in. I just had to wait for my opportunity.’

When it came, Edelin made the most of it. After playing just nine minutes in the first half, Edelin scored 14 of his team-high 17 points in the second half to lead Syracuse to a 69-63 win over a pesky Manhattan team in a rematch of last season’s first round NCAA Tournament game before 14,688.

As important as his offense was, Edelin, who played all 20 minutes in the second stanza, might have been more valuable on defense. After falling behind, 42-34, at halftime, Syracuse switched from its trademark 2-3 zone defense to man-to-man. Edelin’s mission: Shut down Luis Flores, the defending MAAC Player of the Year who torched SU for 15 first-half points.

Mission accomplished. Flores finished with just 22 points – two of which came on a meaningless, last-second lay-in – and shot 2 of 9 in the second half with Edelin guarding him. Ironically, the only reason Edelin drew Flores was because SU’s best defensive stopper, Josh Pace, sat the majority of the second half with four fouls.

Edelin compared playing Flores to checking Notre Dame point guard Chris Thomas and said that experience helped him contain Flores.

But don’t expect Boeheim to congratulate Edelin just yet.

‘Coach expects so much from me,’ Edelin said. ‘I could be playing good defense and he’ll still be all over me. Like last game, he expected me to be Jason Kidd or something.’

In the first half, Boeheim would have settled for Jason Alexander on defense. SU’s zone stagnated and allowed Manhattan center Jason Benton to 12 first-half points on 6-of-6 shooting. The 2-3 zone also hurt SU’s rebounding, as Manhattan corralled 12 boards to the Orangmen’s nine.

SU rotated poorly in the zone and moved too slow. It looked like a distant cousin of the active, trapping beast that carried SU through the NCAA Tournament last March.

‘If we had stayed it zone,’ Syracuse center Craig Forth said, ‘it would have killed us.’

At halftime, Boeheim decided to switch to out of the zone for the next 20 minutes – no matter what.

‘It was a gamble,’ Boeheim said. ‘We were going to win or lose the game playing man.’

Thanks to largely to Edelin stopping Flores, Boeheim’s gamble paid off. Playing man-to-man made Syracuse more aggressive, and it allowed just 21 points in the second half using zone only on Manhattan’s out-of-bounds plays. Playing man also made rebounding easier for SU, and they out-rebounded Manhattan 28-14 in the second half.

The man defense made the Jaspers less aggressive and propelled SU to a 6-0 run to open the second half. And Manhattan never conquered the man-to-man. In the first round tournament game last fall, Syracuse played zone for the entire 40 minutes.

‘We prepared for the zone so much,’ Manhattan head coach Bobby Gonzalez said ‘When they came out in man, it surprised us a little bit. They really turned up the pressure.’

With 6:48 remaining, a free throw by Manhattan’s Dave Holmes cut SU’s lead to 60-56. The Orangemen wouldn’t score for two minutes, but actually extended their lead because the Jaspers couldn’t score again until another Holmes free throw with 3:30 left.

‘Our man-to-man defense was as good as it could possibly be,’ Boehiem said. ‘If we didn’t play that well defensively, we were going to get beat by 15 points.

‘It changed the face of the game,’ Edelin said. ‘It allowed us to get going, even on offense. The defensive pressure allowed us open our offense.’

Edelin made himself the main cog in that offense. With Manhattan’s quicksilver, 5-foot-8 guard Kenny Minor denying Gerry McNamara the ball and Hakim Warrick battling constant double-teams, Edelin found himself open under the basket for much of the second half. When the ball got to his hands, he utilized his uncanny ability to finish around the rim.

‘He’s such a tough matchup,’ Gonzalez said. ‘He’s as big as our center, and he’s their point guard. We didn’t know who to put on him.’

But Syracuse won because it knew just who to put on Flores.

A half hour after the game, SU assistant coach Mike Hopkins sought a high-five from Edelin, who had bypassed the coach on the way to the locker room.

‘You have a great game, and I can’t get no love?’ Hopkins asked as he playfully shook Edelin’s hand.

As he walked away, he reminded a reporter the reason why Edelin’s performance was worthy of the gesture.

‘He had a great game,’ Hopkins said. ‘He shut down Luis Flores.’

Published on December 16, 2003 at 12:00 pm