It was like a pick-up basketball game where both teams throw the winners’ money into a hat before the game. But instead of money in a hat, the coveted prize for the winner was a better position in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament committee. The loser would be left with a stench of uncertainty as the games become numbered and the calendar creeps closer to March.

In a mid-February game that found two of college basketball’s prestigious programs peddling an unfamiliar fence this late in the season – the one that surrounds teams already a virtual lock for an NCAA Tournament bid – both Syracuse and Cincinnati were in clichd must-win scenarios. The Bearcats were the team won, beating the Orange, 82-65, in front of 21,459 at the Carrier Dome on Wednesday.

‘I don’t want to end my senior year going to a different tournament. I want to go to the NCAA tournament, and that’s on us,’ said senior guard Gerry McNamara, who scored 14 points and led the team with five assists. ‘The coaches can only do so much, and the rest is up to us.’

But it wouldn’t be as appropriate to say the Orange was beaten as it is to say it was out-rebounded. The rugged Bearcats – who gave up significant size at almost every position – gave SU a Barkley-esque clinic. They grabbed 44 rebounds to the Orange’s 25 rebounds.

Syracuse (17-8, 5-6 Big East) tried everything it could, even playing a good chunk of the game in man-to-man defense. Considering the Bearcats (17-9, 6-6) front line is 6-foot-6, 6-foot-6 and 6-foot-7, it would seem SU should have been able to hold its own in the

paint. Instead, the Bearcats took control.

‘We come off a good game and good practices, we should be able to do something inside,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘We shot the ball extremely well. We got and played man-to-man, but it’s just not our best defense. We’re just not good enough in a man-to-man situation.’

Despite the lopsided score, SU didn’t play poorly. It played well in the first half when it brought a 41-40 lead into the locker room with an impressive 50 percent field goal percentage.

But in the second half, the Bearcats couldn’t miss a shot while the Orange had trouble making one. Cincinnati shot 18-of-32 from the field in the second half, outscoring SU 42-24. The Orange was held to just 9-of-27 from the field. The half was a continuous downward spiral which alternative defenses and mass substitutions couldn’t rectify.

‘When things are going right, everyone’s involved offensively and defensively,’ said junior center Darryl Watkins, who scored six points and grabbed five rebounds. ‘And when things are not going right, you see people’s heads down and little mistakes happening over and over again.’

Both teams’ offensive production came from unexpected places. Cincinnati was led by Cedric McGowan, who scored a career-high 19 points. It was only the 10th time in 26 games the junior has scored double-digits. He also added nine rebounds. The Bearcats had three other scorers in double figures: James White (18), Jihad Muhammad (19) and Devan Downey (16). McGowan and White, both forwards, crippled the Orange by hitting jump shots.

‘We weren’t active enough on it,’ Boeheim said. ‘We’re capable of getting out of playing. We just didn’t. Our defense was terrible. We’re absolutely terrible on defense. We haven’t played well on defense in any of the games we’ve lost.’

The Orange received abnormal offensive production from redshirt junior Matt Gorman; the forward scored 10 points, his first-time in double digits since arriving at Syracuse in 2002. The Orange was led by freshman Eric Devendorf’s 15 points.

When the final buzzer sounded, White ran toward the baseline near the SU student section and screamed toward the fans who were heckling the Bearcats throughout the game. The fans, like the Orange, expected the result of January’s matchup, when SU handled the Bearcats, 77-58.

‘We came out tonight like we had a definite win in our belts and it wouldn’t be like that while the game was going on,’ Watkins said. ‘It’s the Big East. It can happen to anyone. You get a win on someone else’s court and they come back with revenge on their mind.’

The revenge was evident, nullifying the home-court advantage SU had in its favor. After the Orange played its best game in more than a month in Sunday’s win against St. John’s, the Orange looked like it was turning around it fortunes, especially with three straight home games. But with Wednesday’s loss, it’s left in a difficult situation.

‘Every game at home should be a must-win,’ McNamara said. ‘It’s frustrating when you drop a couple you know you should have had. But you have to take the loss and move on.’

Published on February 15, 2006 at 12:00 pm