He emerged from the locker room without crutches, without ice, without any signs of injury. Dressed in full uniform, he rushed out during introductions to a raucous crowd, which both cheered and sighed its shooting guard’s apparent clean bill of health.

On Saturday, Golden Boy came back, which is to assume he ever left in the first place. After his worst shooting night of the season – 2-for-10 in a 74-67 loss at Seton Hall – Gerry McNamara was limited in two days of practice with a left groin injury, unnoticeable during SU’s games but which caused McNamara to say he could ‘barely move’ at halftime of the SHU game.

His inglorious return started with promise, as McNamara hit 3 of 5 3-pointers before missing his last six shots. For a while, yes, Golden Boy’s golden touch kept SU respectable, within a single-digit deficit for the first half. As his shot faded, though, so too did Syracuse, which stuck with a balanced Pittsburgh team – Pitt’s top three scorers were all held to single digits, but three other players reached double figures – until McNamara lost his touch.

All this should come as unnerving news to SU fans: As McNamara goes, so goes the Orangemen. Which means as long as he’s hurt, less offense and more losses should be in store.

Of course, we don’t know McNamara’s real status. After Boeheim sneered off a question regarding McNamara’s health – ‘No. 1, I’m not a doctor,’ he said. ‘No. 2, I’m not (Gerry). I mean, what are you asking me for?’ – reporters gathered around the man himself, only to watch McNamara snap his hoodie over his head and storm away without a word.

Others were just as puzzled, offering answers that appeared to shadow McNamara’s performance rather than offer any insight. Freshman Louie McCroskey said that as the game wore on, ‘his groin probably stiffened up on him a little bit.’ Based on what? The fact that he missed his last six shots?

We don’t know if McNamara’s performance Saturday was a valiant effort, overcoming great pain and suffering to put his heart on the line, or an overblown cramp that McNamara blamed for his off night. In truth, his injury is probably somewhere in between.

On the court, he looks fine, not a step slow as Boeheim suggested postgame, or hobbled at all. Still, as long as the McNamara injury saga continues, others must replace his contributions. Perhaps you thought Hakim Warrick, that spindly, slippery forward could pick up the slack a bit, with a few breakout performances from guards Billy Edelin and Josh Pace to help ease McNamara back to full health.

But without a healthy McNamara, Pittsburgh simply outmuscled the 185-pound Warrick underneath, hacking Hak without mercy from the referees. When Pitt’s 282-pound behemoth Toree Morris fouled Warrick, who complained on and off to the refs all game about the physical play, with less than 6:00 left, Warrick whispered to himself, ‘Finally.’ But if Warrick expects those calls all season, he’s in trouble.

‘It’s gonna continue,’ SU coach Jim Boeheim said of the physical play. ‘It’s much more physical ahead of us than it has been behind us. Although we’ve had a few games which have been physical, most of the physical games are ahead of us. I’m disappointed with how we handled these two games in terms of physical play. That’s the biggest disappointment over anything.’

Pace and Edelin failed to help, either. After starting the season with eye-popping performances, Edelin looked destined for a Big East all-first team selection. Pace, too, looked like a perfect complimentary player, capable of knifing through defenses and lobbing his ugly-but-high-percentage baskets.

On Saturday, the two combined to shoot 4-of-12 for nine points.

‘One thing we talk about right now is Hak or G-Mac touch the ball, and we just stand,’ said center Craig Forth, who looked like he was becoming a viable offensive player himself before returning to inadequacy. ‘We’re used to one guy scoring so many points. G-Mac would score 25 a game. We just not used to having to do anything.’

Anything, that is, except set the high screen. McNamara continues to come off them, stop and pop with a hand in his face as he leans back. In fact, his tricky, off-balance shot is becoming more routine than impressive.

‘We were playing both (McNamara and Warrick),’ Pitt center Chris Taft said. ‘But with Gerry, we know he’s coming off screens all the time. We know that’s what he’s gonna do. So we just defend that.’

Perhaps McNamara truly is injured, playing through pain for the sake of the team. Then again, maybe he’s fine, and the assessment of SU’s coaching staff at the beginning of the year – that McNamara needs to become more of a penetrater to excel – is catching up with the sophomore. Either way, without McNamara’s shot, Syracuse is 0-2, setting new offensive lows and proving the Orangemen’s main offensive cog is a 6-foot-2 kid from Scranton. Without him, they’re lost.

‘This is two games in a row where we’ve gone to Hak a little too much,’ Boeheim said. ‘We’ve gotta find some other options offensively.’

After watching the other options Saturday, it seems SU’s only hope is a healthy McNamara.

Scott Lieber is the assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at smlieber@syr.edu.

Published on January 25, 2004 at 12:00 pm