On Jan. 19, the Syracuse men’s basketball team, riding a 13-game winning streak and coming off two blockbuster road wins, seemed destined for the top 10.

But two blowout losses, one lost shooting touch and 16 days later, Syracuse is wounded.

Still reeling from three losses in four games, the Orangemen are trying to sort out the problems that have plagued them in this short dry spell.

The freshmen and centers have been held responsible. Guard Gerry McNamara’s poor shooting – perhaps the result of a groin injury suffered in SU’s 74-67 loss to Seton Hall on Jan. 20 – too has been blamed. SU coach Jim Boeheim, for one, faults the one-dimensional offense, one which fed forward Hakim Warrick for 26 points but only manufactured 30 aside from the junior.

‘We’re not able offensively to get any penetration,’ Boeheim said. ‘We’re not getting any penetration against the defenses of the teams we play. That’s been the story in all three games. It’s really been about the same.’

That may be because of the absence of point guard Billy Edelin, who has sat the last two games because of a personal issue.

Others have not been able to replace the sophomore. Junior Josh Pace, a productive slasher earlier this year, has been held to 17 points combined in SU’s last three losses.

‘We’re just not making shots,’ said Warrick, whose teammate Gerry McNamara shot a dismal 2-for-17 on Monday. ‘We’re really struggling from the field. We gotta play tougher. We just gotta go out there and play Syracuse basketball. We’ve been missing a lot of shots, shots that we normally make. We’re not making any hustle plays, and that’s something we definitely gotta do.’

The problems extend beyond shooting. The last three losses haven’t been close, a combined 56-point discrepancy. Even in SU’s first loss – 96-92, on Nov. 26 to Charlotte – SU scored 63 second-half points, a preview for what became an explosive offense.

But there has been no second-half burst of late.

Connecticut outrebounded Syracuse by nine in the second half, and UConn scored 20 fast-break points compared to just nine for SU.

‘We’ve got to get ourselves going, not be relying on one guy or two guys to do the work,’ Forth said. ‘We came out strong today, at the start. I don’t know what happened. They beat us on the boards. They outhustled us for everything, and they beat us down the court. Notre Dame wasn’t doing that. Missouri wasn’t doing that. We played hard against them, played physical. We matched them. Pittsburgh and Connecticut, I guess we didn’t match. Obviously they blew us out.’

With the beginning of the Big East play, Syracuse finally started playing the meat of its schedule. Even SU’s big wins midway through the season – at Missouri and Notre Dame, and Michigan State – were wins against underachievers.

‘I have a lot of respect for the teams we’ve lost to in our league,’ Boeheim said of Seton Hall, Pitt and UConn. ‘These three teams, we haven’t really gotten anything going offensively, and it’s because they’re very good defensive teams. Right now we’re just not balanced enough on offense to compete against the level of defense against which these teams play.’

Said Warrick: ‘You definitely want to get in there and compete. It’s tough losing, especially since we’ve been getting blown out the last couple games. We gotta turn it around. We got a big game coming up Saturday.’

Published on February 3, 2004 at 12:00 pm