ROSEMONT, Ill. – As the final minutes of the first half faded, the frustration spread among the home faithful here in Allstate Arena.

Again and again, DePaul shots were rattling the rim, tantalizing the net, and rimming out.

Then finally, when Donte Greene swatted away Jabari Currie’s shot into the SU bench, Karron Clarke threw up his arms in frustration. That was DePaul’s 13th miss in 14 shot attempts during the final eight minutes of the first half.

It was the culmination of an impressive defensive turnaround in the first half of Syracuse’s win, 60-55 over DePaul Wednesday night. After allowing the Blue Demons to penetrate inside and get open looks for much of the first half, the SU defense tightened, producing a stifling effort for the rest of the half that would extend throughout the remainder of the game.

The 55 points was the fewest allowed by the Orange since it gave up 53 in a win over South Florida on Feb. 14.

‘We did a good job getting out on that 3-point shooter,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘In the first half they were getting too much penetration. They were getting by us too much, getting in the lane and they got those short pull-ups in the lane.’

Those deficiencies staked DePaul to an early lead. The Blue Demons started the game hot, building a 27-19 advantage with 8:23 left behind 12-of-22 shooting.

And at that point, for some reason or another, something clicked for Syracuse. All of a sudden, the Orange got out on the shooters, stopped any opponent from slashing into the team of its 2-3 zone, and the Blue Demons, well, just kept missing. DePaul shot an awful 2-for-15 from the field for the last eight minutes of the half, scoring four points in the stretch.

‘We just played together,’ forward Paul Harris said when asked about with sparked the SU defense into action. ‘We knew this was a must-win – we hadn’t won a road game in the Big East conference – so it was a must win for us.’

And that defense showed up in crunch time the second half as well, once again rescuing the Orange from a deficit. After the Blue Demons took a 49-48 lead off a Wesley Green jump shot at the 7:57 mark, they wouldn’t score again for over five minutes, until the 2:10 mark.

By then, a stagnant SU offense had managed to produce enough key baskets to take a five-point lead, and DePaul’s best efforts in the waning minutes weren’t enough to make up for its struggles in the earlier minutes.

The stats were telling of SU’s defensive effort. After starting the game 12-of-22, the Blue Demons shot 12-of-47 for the rest of the game – a dismal 25.5 percent.

‘We were just assertive,’ guard Jonny Flynn said. ‘It felt good to be that team that could come up with big stops. It felt good to be that team that could rely on the offense and when the offense isn’t clicking well, fall back on defense and know you can get a stop. So, we’ve shown flashes of what we can do.’

The defensive effort against DePaul was indicative of an SU defense that has improved since the start of the season. After giving 76.4 points per game in non-conference play, the Orange has allowed 69.4 points per game in the Big East.

It’s a new look for a Syracuse team that for the first half of the season had relied so much on a high-powered offense to win games.

‘We’ve gotten better as the season’s gone along defensively,’ Boeheim said. ‘I think that’s a big reason why we’ve played better. Early in the year, we were much better on offense, and we weren’t playing much defense.’

Published on January 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm