EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Seton Hall coughed up the ball, let rebounds slip away and missed shots in an overall sloppy performance.

Yet with less than a minute left it appeared Syracuse might just choke in a game Seton Hall handed the Orangemen on a platter. The Pirates scratched and clawed their way to within two on a last-second shot by John Allen, but a sloppy first half proved too much to overcome, as SU (20-7, 9-4 Big East) knocked off Seton Hall (12-14, 5-8), 73-71, before 9,561 at Continental Airlines Arena.

‘We played until the end, and we gave ourselves a chance,’ Seton Hall head coach Louis Orr said. ‘But to come back against a team like Syracuse with all of their weapons, it’s not easy. You almost have to play a perfect game.’

Orr’s team was far from perfect, especially in the first half when the Pirates airballed four shots, botched an inbounds pass and were charged with shot-clock and backcourt violations. That, combined with 28 percent shooting, helped Syracuse to a 17-point halftime lead.

The Syracuse zone defense deserved some credit for forcing the Pirates to take shots beyond the NBA three-point line. The Pirates went 3 of 13 from behind the arc in the first half, 9 of 24 overall.

‘It took us a while to adjust to their zone, to execute a little better,’ Orr said. ‘When a team comes out with a lot of energy and feeds on it, it’s tough to score.’

The teams exchanged runs early, and despite Seton Hall’s sloppiness, SU never grabbed control until it broke off an 18-0 run that started with two free throws from Preston Shumpert. Jeremy McNeil kept the run alive, contributing six of his eight first-half points in a two-minute span.

He took passes from Shumpert and DeShaun Williams and converted them with back-to-back dunks to extend the Syracuse lead to 34-17. McNeil kicked in eight points and seven rebounds before fouling out.

‘(McNeil) was having a great game, and he would have been very valuable down the end,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘It’s too bad he fouled out. He did a great job at both ends.’

‘All game I was ready to rock,’ McNeil said. ‘That’s what coach has been telling me to do. Just go out there and stay on my toes.’

In the second half Syracuse tripped, though, failing to close out a Pirate team that looked too out of sync offensively to make any kind of run.

But with timely offensive rebounding and clutch shooting late, Seton Hall managed just such a run, foreshadowing it with a 7-0 gallop early in the second half to pull within 13.

Once again a poor effort on the defensive boards put the Orangemen in a position they should have avoided. The Pirates beat SU on the boards by just five in the second half, but Seton Hall’s multiple second-chance opportunities keyed its late run. Some of that stemmed from the loss of McNeil, who rebounded well in his 22 minutes.

Slowly, the seemingly insurmountable edge disintegrated, and with seven minutes to go, the Orangemen led by a mere seven points.

Still, Syracuse appeared to have put the game away after finally succeeding on the boards. Shumpert missed a short jumper and grabbed his own rebound, only to wander out behind the arc and miss a three. Thues airballed another jumper, but Williams buried a three from out top to put the Orangemen up 10.

Syracuse pushed the lead back to 13, but with three minutes left, Seton Hall had cut it to seven. A Charles Manga rebound and layup brought the Pirates within four with 24 seconds remaining. But three of four free throws by Williams and a home-run pass from Shumpert to Thues put the Orangemen ahead by four and rendered harmless Allen’s field goal as time expired.

Allen and his teammates slapped hands walking off the court, but it was the Orangemen who celebrated in the locker room, even if they nearly let it slip away.

‘If we win, it just don’t matter,’ said Kueth Duany, who scored all 14 of his points in the first half before possibly breaking his nose. ‘You get nervous, this and that, but once the game is over and Syracuse has more points than the other team, it just don’t matter.’

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Published on February 21, 2002 at 12:00 pm