Photos: Rachel Fus Production: Stephen Dockery

With one sentence, Jim Boeheim gave Syracuse’s gut-wrenching, 82-77 loss to Pittsburgh all the perspective it needed.

‘It’s the most disappointing game I’ve ever been involved with,’ Syracuse’s 32-year head coach said.

Hyperbole or not, there was no avoiding the logic-defying nature of the Orange’s collapse during the final four minutes Saturday.

Syracuse threw away an 11-point lead – and perhaps its NCAA Tournament lifeline – in front of a stunned 23,632 at the Carrier Dome, whose only recourse was to boo the Orange off the floor.

Panthers forward Sam Young provided the sucker punch, stealing the ball from Paul Harris under the SU basket and dishing to Keith Benjamin for a layup to give Pitt a one-point lead with 8.8 seconds left.

Scoop Jardine’s jumper on the other end was no good, and moments after a desperation foul with 1.5 seconds left, Boeheim, who didn’t take questions from the media after the game, was called for a technical after he stormed several feet onto the court.

And as the boos began to rain down from the stands, Levance Fields calmly hit four free throws – the technical plus the one-and-one shots – to put the finishing touches on an 18-2 Pittsburgh run over the game’s final 3:47.

Within that span, Syracuse (17-12, 7-9) went from being back in the thick of the NCAA Tournament discussion to inexplicably suffering its fifth loss in six games with just two weeks until Selection Sunday.

‘It’s probably the most disappointing loss I’ve ever been in too, man,’ Syracuse guard Paul Harris said, in reference to Boeheim’s comments. ‘I can’t believe they just came back like that. We basically just gave them the game.’

‘When you lose a game like this, up 11 with three minutes to go [sic], it hurts so bad that you can’t even explain it,’ point guard Jonny Flynn added.

Even Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon, whose Panthers (21-8, 9-7) all but sewed up a Tournament berth with the win, seemed almost guilty at stealing a victory from the Orange.

‘I feel for Syracuse because I know how much they’ve gone through this year…how much they’ve battled with seven guys,’ Dixon said. ‘They deserved to win a game, and we deserved to win a game. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out fairly.’

Indeed, for long stretches Saturday it looked certain Syracuse would ride Jonny Flynn and Donte Greene to victory. Flynn added a game-high 28 while Greene, who hadn’t registered in double-figures in three of the previous five games, added an efficient 23 points, 18 of those coming in the second half.

Led by those two, the Orange shot 58.8 percent (30-for-51 from the field), more than 10 percentage points better than the Panthers. Yet the game stayed close because of SU’s persistent turnovers (12 in the first half) and lack of defensive rebounding (Pitt had 12 offensive boards).

Still, it looked like Syracuse’s high-tempo offense would be too much for Pittsburgh, which traditionally favors a slower, grind-it-out approach. SU built an 11-point advantage in the second half, prompting Dixon to call a timeout with 3:47 left after an Arinze Onuaku dunk made it 75-64.

As the crowd stood and roared, the SU players seemed to believe the game was theirs. Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris flashed broad, triumphant smiles. Donte Greene waved his arms, urging on the crowd.

‘It looked like we were falling apart,’ Dixon said. ‘We were down 11. We brought them in and said we don’t quit. We may not win, but we’re not going to quit.’

The Orange aided the Panthers cause by completely self-destructing.

The turnovers that had plagued Syracuse in the first half returned. SU committed three in crunch time, including a careless Greene inbounds pass to Pitt’s Ronald Roman for an easy layup to cut SU’s lead to 75-71.

The offense grew stagnant, managing just two points on 1-for-5 shooting in the final 3:49.

And the Pitt offense came alive behind the shooting of Gilbert Brown, who came into the game a 19.4 percent 3-point shooter. Brown made two huge treys (one from NBA range) in the final four minutes to give Pitt a chance.

Finally, the unthinkable happened when Young picked Harris’ pocket, and Benjamin put the Panthers in front for good.

The smiles and the high fives from four minutes earlier had vanished. All that was left was a sense of frustration foreign even to Syracuse’s Hall of Fame coach.

‘The entire game we kept turning the ball over, and at the end we just had to take care of the basketball, and we had three just unbelievable turnovers and that was the game,’ Boeheim said. ‘Nothing more to say about it.’

jsclayto@syr.edu

Published on March 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm