STORRS, Conn. — It’s 2 p.m. on Saturday, seven hours before tip-off, and a slew of Connecticut fans are gathered outside Gampel Pavilion, waiting patiently for that night’s showdown between the Huskies and No. 2 Syracuse.

It’s 2 p.m. on Saturday, and the 3-pointer by Alex Dragicevich comes up short in Madison Square Garden. His miss seals the St. John’s upset of No. 20 Notre Dame and hands Syracuse the No. 1 seed in the Big East tournament.

At this point, the Orange is presented with a choice.

A suddenly less-important date with the Huskies provides an opportunity to sit back a bit, circa 2010, and begin gliding toward the NCAA Tournament. Or it provides the chance to dig in, finish the regular season strong and not make the same mistakes the 2009-10 Syracuse team did — tripping up in the season finale to Louisville and getting upset in its opening game at the Big East tournament.

As Brandon Triche pointed out, past teams have fallen short. Past teams, he said, lacked effort.

‘The last few years we were kind of disappointed because we didn’t make the effort that we should have, winning games and getting to the championship in the Big East,’ Triche said.

But Saturday’s 71-69 win over UConn dispelled any doubt regarding this team’s toughness going forward. A team that has also essentially assured itself of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament showed no signs of complacency and played with the grittiness necessary to make a deep run in March.

The Orange, a team simply adding wins to its tally sheet, took the floor in a hostile environment Saturday and faced a team that desperately needed a victory to save its season. Yet as the final minutes played out, it was the Syracuse players who seemed to want the game more.

Despite a sold-out crowd of more than 10,000 imploring the struggling Huskies to play well, the Orange came out flying and seized momentum. Uninhibited by the deafening roars inside Gampel Pavilion, Syracuse put together one of its best halves of the season to stun Connecticut and take a 14-point lead.

SU was plus-10 on the boards in the first half, too. A product of superior effort.

‘I think the way we started kind of took the wind out of their sails,’ SU assistant coach Gerry McNamara said.

UConn finally got its act together 23 minutes into the game to mount a furious comeback after facing a 17-point deficit. It was a run McNamara said he and the team knew was coming.

But in a game in which a win would yield very little, Syracuse still refused to be beaten.

Four consecutive missed jump shots allowed the Huskies to pull within eight by the 13-minute mark of the second half. That’s when SU guard Dion Waiters flung himself down the lane to attempt a vicious two-handed dunk.

He was whacked in the air by UConn’s Niels Giffey. Waiters ended up on his backside under the hoop, clutching his right wrist and grimacing. He got up and made both free throws.

Waiters went on to make two more gut-check plays for the Orange. First, he twisted through traffic and into the lane for a left-handed layup that gave his team a 69-65 lead with 2:12 remaining.

With 17 seconds left, he made what Triche called a pure ‘effort play.’ UConn’s Ryan Boatright, who had already hit four 3-pointers on the night, was wide open on the left wing. Waiters lunged at him and blocked the shot when he just as easily could have stuck a hand up to merely contest it.

Down the stretch, Connecticut’s supposed leader was nowhere to be found. Jeremy Lamb attempted zero shots in the final 5:46 of the game Saturday. He seemed more interested in playing hot potato than basketball and quickly passed to a teammate whenever he touched the ball.

So it was forward Roscoe Smith who took the big shot for the Huskies on the final possession of the game. He was halted in the lane by Syracuse’s Fab Melo, and C.J. Fair sped in to double Smith and block his attempt.

Another hustle play by Fair sealed the win for the Orange. Meanwhile, Lamb stood watching roughly 28 feet from the basket, providing no help.

That’s the difference between a team with Final Four potential and a team staring the National Invitation Tournament dead in the face. One does anything to win at any time, the other shows up when it feels like it.

Said Fair: ‘We stayed in there fighting.’

Michael Cohen is a staff writer at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at mjcohe02@syr.edu or on Twitter at @Michael_Cohen13. 

Published on February 26, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13