MIAMI – Only two weeks ago, freshman Louie McCroskey was the unofficial sixth man. The first person off the bench. The only reliable shooter on a depthless Syracuse men’s basketball bench.

Now, McCroskey has fallen behind. The Bronx native played just three first-half minutes Saturday in Syracuse’s 91-74 win over Miami. McCroskey ended with four points on 2-for-7 shooting in 17 minutes, many of which came in garbage time after SU built upwards of a 25-point lead.

‘We just needed something different,’ McCroskey said. ‘I can be selfish at times, but sometimes I have to be me. Coach (Jim Boeheim) did me a favor playing me. As soon as I got in, it got my confidence up. But it could’ve been different if I wasn’t playing. So I just have to realize that and not try to be mentally spoiled.’

McCroskey’s minutes have slowly dwindled since he played 21 in SU’s 76-64 win Jan. 31 against Virginia Tech. Before Saturday, McCroskey, who shot 0-for-3 on Saturday, played a combined nine minutes in SU’s previous two games, against Rutgers and Providence.

‘Yeah, it’s tough,’ McCroskey said. ‘But once you get to appreciate things, you do better with your time, the time you do have. So instead of complaining about how many minutes you think you should get, you just gotta try and seize the moment based on how many minutes you have. It’s tough, but you gotta try and isolate everything out.’

Fast Pace

During SU’s deciding 25-4 run, Josh Pace ignited three fast breaks, two of which he converted and the other he let Hakim Warrick dunk home.

The full extension of Pace’s reach led to all the steals. After Miami drove to the lane – only to see SU stuff any penetration – the ‘Canes tried passing out. That’s when Pace snatched the Miami turnovers and began an SU fast break.

‘Josh, he’s such a great defender,’ said McNamara, Pace’s partner at the top of SU’s 2-3 zone. ‘We just try to do a good job of aggravating, tapping balls, anything to get a hand on it. He did a great job at the beginning of the game getting steals and knocking loose balls away.’

McNamara ended up with two of SU’s 12 steals.

Miami coach Perry Clark praised SU’s zone as the best he’s seen.

‘We can’t prepare for it because they’re so big and so long,’ he said. ‘Everybody out there outside of McNamara is 6-5, 6-6, and they have very long arms.

‘We said, ‘Don’t pass it, and make them have to make their slides.’ Because after a few reversals, then we’ll be able to get into the gaps a little bit, and then you can set up your partner. We worked on that, and we stuck with it early. But there’s no way to prepare for it.’

Fried Rice

With 7:30 left in the first half, Darius Rice hit the first of two free throws, giving him his 1,000th career point.

Twelve minutes, 30 seconds later – with 15 minutes left in the game – Rice went down, grabbing his right ankle and wincing in pain. Trainers cared to Rice, who limped badly off the floor. When he returned, collapsing into the Miami bench with eight minutes left, a pad graced his right leg.

After the game, Clark said Rice suffered a bruised arch in his right foot.

‘We missed him tonight,’ Clark said, ‘but I don’t know what kind of difference it’ll bring. But we’ll have to wait and see.’

Rice had 14 points on 5-for-14 shooting in 23 minutes.

Going south

Of the 4,025 fans dispersed throughout the Convocation Center, Syracuse fans comprised about two-thirds.

All game, chants of ‘Let’s go ‘Canes!’ were quickly replaced by ‘Let’s go ‘Cuse!’

At one point, with 11:07 left in the first half, a banner flashed across the scoreboard, advertising the sale of Atlantic Coast Conference ticket packages for the ‘Canes next season, and scattered boos filled the crowd.

McCroskey, for one, didn’t anticipate such a supporting crowd.

‘It was good,’ McCroskey said. ‘I didn’t know we were a popular team like that. Obviously when you’re recruited, you say you wanna go to Syracuse because they’ve got notoriety. But it seems like everywhere we go, we’ve got fans cheering, so that’s good. It’s like a home away from home.’

This and that

Syracuse’s 64.4 percent shooting for the game was the highest an opponent has shot against Miami since Duke shot 67.2 percent on Dec. 10, 1988. … Saturday marked Jim Boeheim’s 900th career game as a coach. He has a 669-231 record. … Guard Gerry McNamara, who has 69 3s after hitting five Saturday, is 19 3-pointers shy of SU’s single-season record of 88, set by Preston Shumpert in 2001-02. … SU administrative assistant Allen Griffin stormed into the locker room following the game, screaming, ‘A-Rod’s a Yankee! A-Rod’s a Yankee!’ after discovering that Alex Rodriguez had been traded to baseball’s New York Yankees. It interrupted a number of interviews taking place and caused forward Hakim Warrick to lose his train of thought.

Published on February 15, 2004 at 12:00 pm