NEW YORK – In case you’d forgotten – and this Orange team has offered plenty reason to do so – this is why the Syracuse men’s basketball team earned a No. 7 preseason ranking and was bandied about in Final Four discussions.

Against 11th-seeded Rutgers in a Big East tournament quarterfinal, Syracuse fell victim to none of its usual breakdowns. No debilitating rebounding troubles. No Gerry McNamara shooting slumps. No sophomores playing like wide-eyed freshmen.

Just dominance.

The result was a 81-57 mauling of the Scarlet Knights in a game that for all intents and purposes could have been called 10 minutes in. Using a 10-0 run and a 12-0 run, the Orange carried a 47-22 lead into halftime, not trailing once for the duration. It was a performance that suggested the Orange might be busting out of its late-season slide.

‘We really needed this,’ said SU forward Hakim Warrick, who scored 23 points. ‘Just the way we did it.’

All the ingredients the Orange has been thirsting for, the ones it showed glimpses of during blowouts of Providence and St. John’s, finally came together in a wave that left Rutgers awed.

‘We had to make a decision, and early we made a decision to stop McNamara,’ Rutgers head coach Gary Waters said. ‘Then we made a decision to get out on him. They had it today. My hat goes off to him, because they had it today. Syracuse dominated us out there.’

Warrick did just about whatever he wanted, slashing through and soaring over the overmatched Rutgers defense for 17 first-half points and 23 in total, showing why he won the Big East Player of the Year Award. For good measure, Warrick snared 13 rebounds.

McNamara punctuated fast breaks by stopping on dimes and unleashing his sweet-as-you-please 3-point stroke, displaying wiser shot selection while still employing his freewheeling style. Thanks to a second-half barrage that kept the score cozy for SU, McNamara finished with a game-high 25 points on 6-of-8 three-point shooting.

‘I picked my spots a lot better a lot better tonight then I have been,’ McNamara said. ‘I just stayed patient, and when it came, I took it. I didn’t force anything up. I felt comfortable. That was the key for me.’

And those sophomores played without nerves on a grand stage. Roberts threw down a ferocious one-hand slam over Rutgers forward Dan Waterstradt. Louie McCroskey drained a three-pointer. Even Demetris Nichols snapped his string of timid play, nailing a fade-away jumper in the first half after missing a 3.

Crisp passing and a frenzied press brought the medley together as the Orange played perhaps its most complete game since maddening inconsistency interrupted its 13-game win streak earlier this season.

Now, the trick is playing like that against one of the Big East’s upper echelon teams. Third-seeded Syracuse will get that chance tonight, when it plays two-seed Connecticut at 9 in a semifinal. No. 8 West Virginia will play No. 4 Villanova in the other semifinal at 7 p.m.

‘I don’t like getting embarrassed by teams,’ McNamara said, referring to 88-70 loss in Storrs, Conn. last week. ‘And we did. We played poorly. We’re happy we get another chance with them.’

It was clear from the outset McNamara would get his wish. Warrick set the stage for the evisceration by scoring SU’s first eight points, four of which came on highlight-film slams. The first dunk came when Warrick took a pass on the wing, dribbled once and flew in for a two-hand jam.

‘You definitely want to go out there and be aggressive right from the start,’ Warrick said. ‘We knew they had nothing to lose. I thought if we could jump on them early, put that pressure on them, it would really benefit us.’

McNamara ensured a rout with a bullet-quick pull-up 3-pointer from NBA range followed by whipping a pass to a cutting Roberts for a two-hand slam. Those plays ignited SU’s 10-0 run, and for the remaining 34 minutes, the Orange cruised. The dual dominance of Warrick and McNamara coupled with improved support might be a sign that, after a rollercoaster of a season, the Orange are peaking at the right time. With just one game, the Orange might have snapped out of its recent funk, in which it’s gone 4-5 in its last nine games.

Or it might just be another impressive performance over an inferior opponent.

Which is it? How Syracuse plays against the Huskies tonight should answer that.

‘They’re as good anybody we’ll play in the NCAA Tournament,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘It’s a tremendous game, a tremendous challenge. We look forward to it.’

Published on March 11, 2005 at 12:00 pm