Preston Shumpert sat on a stool in the Syracuse locker room holding his head.

It was as if he was trying to get a grip on something — anything, even a near-hairless head — to keep Syracuse’s postseason hopes from slipping away.

With eight losses in its last 12 games — the most recent a 69-65 setback against Boston College yesterday — and an RPI already down to 51 before the game, Syracuse likely needs at least one Big East Tournament win to maintain its NCAA Tournament hopes.

‘It’s desperation,’ forward Hakim Warrick said. ‘It’s been that for the last three games. We’ve just got to continue to go out and play our hearts out. Right now we’re probably not going to the tournament. We need to go to New York and get some big wins.’

In front of a Carrier Dome crowd of 22,928, the Orangemen (20-10, 9-7 Big East) ran into a team as desperate as itself. Boston College (19-10, 8-8) needed a win to finish the conference season at .500, a mark nearly required for an at-large NCAA berth.

For the third consecutive contest, all losses, Syracuse allowed its opponent to sprint to a double-digit lead before making the game competitive. Yesterday, Boston College led 59-46 with 10 minutes to play. A week earlier, Georgetown led by 10 with 12 minutes remaining. Thursday, Villanova led the Orangemen by a dozen at halftime before Syracuse tied the game.

‘We need to start running around the Dome or something before the game so that we get pumped up or something,’ junior DeShaun Williams said. ‘We need to stop coming out flat.’

Similar to the Orangemen’s past two games, the 10-minute mark served as a switch, igniting defensive intensity and clutch shooting. Syracuse went on a 15-2 run that included 13 consecutive points by forward Preston Shumpert keyed by a full-court press.

During the run, sleepy Syracuse, which had dozed for the first 30 minutes, woke up thanks to three of Williams’ game-high nine steals and a block of a Troy Bell lay-up by seldom-used center Billy Celuck.

More importantly, the steals helped Syracuse’s struggling offense create easy scoring opportunities. Shumpert scored five points on a fast-break three-pointer and a dunk. The Orangemen shot 40 percent for the first time in three games but made only 4 of 20 from behind the arc.

‘I haven’t seen a very positive offensive thing in any of our last 10 games,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘The games we’ve won we’ve struggled to win, and the games we’ve lost I don’t know how we’ve stayed in the games.’

With 1:20 left and the game tied at 63, any semblance of offensive ability that Boeheim may have glossed over left the Orangemen. After Warrick was charged with goaltending on an Andrew Bryant lay-up, Shumpert badly missed a fadeaway.

‘The three times we came back and got it tied, we haven’t been able to make a good offensive play in that situation,’ Boeheim said. ‘Again, you can’t put yourself in these positions where it’s going to come down to one or two plays.’

Seconds after Shumpert’s miss, guard DeShaun Williams careened down the lane, firing an off-balance floater. The rebound settled into Bell’s hands and he was fouled immediately. He iced the game with a pair of free-throws and then two more in the waning seconds.

Bell might have had the ball at the line, but it was the Eagles’ role players that got him there. Guard Kenny Walls — who scored 15 points on 5-for-7 shooting from three-point range — knocked down three-pointer after three-pointer when Syracuse crept close. Center Uka Agbai, who scored 13 points, bullied his way to five offensive rebounds.

The loss cost Syracuse a chance at a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament that seemed almost guaranteed two weeks ago. It also dropped Syracuse to fourth place in the West Division, earning the team a date with Villanova on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.

‘We’ve done it to ourselves,’ Shumpert said. ‘We’ve beaten ourselves. No one’s really gone out and beat us. That was just a simple case of us feeling like we could turn it off and on whenever we could and that’s not the case.’

‘Our first 10 minutes (against Villanova), that will decide our season,’ Williams said. ‘I think the first 10 minutes we have to be ready to play. Then it could be a great tournament for us.’

Published on March 3, 2002 at 12:00 pm