CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Maybe the prank calls to Donte Greene’s cell phone will finally stop now.

For two days leading up to Syracuse’s first road contest Wednesday at Virginia, the Cavalier faithful did their best to rattle Greene and the young Orange with endless calls and other antics.

‘I have no idea how they got my number,’ a vindicated Greene said after the game. ‘We had people coming through our hallway knocking on our doors. … It’s been a crazy two days.’

Getting its first taste of an intimidating road atmosphere, Syracuse edged out a gutsy win over Virginia, 70-68, in front of a hostile 13,603 at the John Paul Jones Arena.

An Orange team that looked so much its age just seven days ago in a home loss to Massachusetts rallied to beat Virginia with a resilient second half performance. SU (6-2) twice overcame Virginia (6-2) leads to earn its first regular season road win against a power conference team since it beat Missouri, 82-68, on Jan. 12, 2004.

‘A win like this says a lot about your nature as a team,’ said Flynn, second on SU with 18 points. ‘This is how the Big East is going to be, going into a hostile environment with a bunch of good players on the court. We’re going to be in similar positions, so this is a big win for us.’

Down 68-65, Virginia closed to one on a Mamadi Diane dunk with seven seconds remaining. Flynn followed with two free throws. SU then fouled Cavaliers star point guard Sean Singletary with 1.2 seconds left before he could attempt a tying 3. Singletary made one and purposely missed the other, but SU pulled down the rebound.

The loss was only the second for Virginia since the opening of the John Paul Jones Arena last season. Syracuse also snapped Virginia’s 12-game winning steak in the building.

Greene led all scorers for Syracuse with 20 points and also tallied 10 boards, while Paul Harris chipped in 10 points and 14 rebounds for his sixth double-double in eight games.

The Orange dug itself a hole in a dismal offensive first half, scoring just five points in the final 8:32 and went into the break down, 36-29. That deficit was quickly erased early in the second half, when an 8-0 run in less than two minutes gave Syracuse a 44-41 lead.

The Cavaliers retook the lead, 57-56, at the 7:36 mark off a 3-point play from Singletary.

But whereas the Orange had folded after giving up the lead against UMass, it proved resilient on this evening. Two minutes later at 5:01, Greene put Syracuse up for good at 63-61 with a 3-pointer from the corner.

Fifteen of Greene’s points came in a clutch second half for both the freshman forward and the Orange, which outscored the Cavaliers, 41-32, after halftime.

‘Jonny and Donte stepped up big,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘They’re freshmen, but they’re very good freshmen. I thought they were really solid tonight. … In the second half, Donte got a couple good looks and made them, and that was the difference.’

It helped that Syracuse’s defense managed to contain a Virginia offense that came into the game averaging 83.3 points a game. Part of that was due to poor shooting from the Cavaliers, which hit just 11-of-32 from 3-point range against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, which the Orange used the entire contest.

Syracuse managed to hold Singletary – UVa’s leading scorer who came into the game second in the Atlantic Coach Conference in scoring with 20.4 points a game – to 10 points on 3-of-14 shooting.

‘I thought tonight we did the best job we’ve done all year in finding people and recognizing where Singletary was, where there shooters were and just keeping them on the perimeter with somebody challenging the shot,’ Boeheim said. ‘…Virginia has scored a lot of points this year, and we have not been able to stop anybody.’

Indeed, it was a statement win for a young Syracuse team that managed to silence the UVa faithful and, perhaps more importantly, provided the foundation of worthy resume come Selection Sunday.

‘It meant a lot, especially coming off that loss to UMass at home,’ Greene said. ‘That definitely had that NCAA Committee going, ‘Here we go with Syracuse again.’ But you know, we gotta come up and play hard, and we showed we should be back in the NCAA, and we just gotta keep playing hard.’

Published on December 5, 2007 at 12:00 pm