Four months ago, Syracuse left New York City as Preseason NIT champions. Three weeks ago, the Orangemen departed the Big Apple as Big East failures.

Tonight, they return again with a chance to reclaim a season that nearly slipped away somewhere between late November and early March. Syracuse (23-11) faces South Carolina (21-14) at 9:30 in Madison Square Garden for a chance to advance to Thursday’s NIT final.

The season has come full circle for Syracuse. What started with so much promise dissipated in a blur of injuries, intrigue and, most evidently, poor shooting. But now Syracuse has found its shot, and with that it hopes to rediscover some of the magic the start of the season seemed to foreshadow.

That begins with senior Preston Shumpert, who finally embraced his role as a leader. More significantly, Shumpert has shaken the eye injury that dogged him through February.

‘Preston has been shooting the ball great,’ head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘He’s got his confidence back. That’s the difference.’

Along with Shumpert, SU’s freshmen have rediscovered those November moments when it seemed that – despite losing Billy Edelin and later Mark Konecny – the newcomers’ youthful energy would complement the veteran presence of Shumpert and Kueth Duany.

Sure, Craig Forth still struggles to dodge the referee’s whistle, and Hakim Warrick doesn’t play well enough defensively to start. But without the efforts of Warrick and freshman guard Josh Pace, SU may have wilted its last time out to an energetic Richmond team backed by an even more energetic crowd.

‘(Warrick’s) just still learning the basic stuff at this stage,’ Boeheim said. ‘He’s got tremendous talent, and he works hard and he’s already gained weight, which is a huge sign.’

But, before Syracuse can lay claim to a full return to NIT glory, it must beat a South Carolina team that in some ways mirrors SU.

The Gamecocks won nine of 10 games in a span from Nov. 26 to Dec. 30. After that, inconsistency plagued South Carolina, causing it to fall to the bottom half of the SEC. Now, like Syracuse, the Gamecocks appear poised to salvage a season that did not culminate in an NCAA Tournament berth.

A 74-67 victory at Virginia in the first round of the NIT propelled the Gamecocks into the second round, where they knocked off UNLV, 75-65. Most recently, South Carolina mauled Ball State, 82-47, outscoring BSU 48-12 in the first half in a game first-year head coach Dave Odom deemed ‘easily the best we’ve played all year.’

Guard Jamel Bradley leads South Carolina with 13.2 points per game, but the Gamecocks win with defense. Although they shoot just 43.2 percent from the field, they allow their opponents only slightly better at 43.6 percent and yield just 61.4 points on average.

‘The one constant for our team is that we have gotten progressively better on defense through the season,’ Odom said. ‘By the time we got to February and March, we had a good enough defense that we could compete with anyone in the country.’

But perhaps more important than anything on the court, Odom – who guided Wake Forest to seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 1991 to 1997 – has ratcheted up the expectations in Columbia, S.C.

‘We’ve got great kids who have good attitude,’ Odom said. ‘But they did not believe in themselves as players. It was like, ‘Who us? We can’t win.’ They believe they can compete. You try to get them to the next step where they believe.’

Now South Carolina does. Tonight, the team hopes to prevent Syracuse from coming full circle and finishing where it started, atop the NIT. If SU pulls it off, it would be the first team to win both the preseason and postseason NIT.

But in the way stands South Carolina, a team poised for the challenge.

‘I think we’ve got enough (on Syracuse),’ Odom said. ‘They’re one of those teams that’s on television a lot. Whether you’re looking at them from a scouting standpoint or not, you can see what they’re about.

‘Jim Boeheim has been there longer than the school itself. It’s a Jim Boeheim team.’

Published on March 25, 2002 at 12:00 pm