NEW YORK — As Syracuse and South Carolina ambled to center court for the opening tip last night, the teams exchanged quizzical looks, surveying each other from head to toe.

Sure, the teams last met two seasons ago and over time some of the faces had changed, but the question-mark look on every player’s face was due not to uncertainty but to uniformity.

Both the Orangemen and Gamecocks opened the game wearing their home whites last night, leaving 10 players with similar shirts and shorts and a good deal of confusion. Not until a media timeout 2:41 into the game did Syracuse’s orange jerseys show up.

And as the players removed their shirts on the sidelines — leaving some, like Preston Shumpert and Kueth Duany, bare-chested — they drew a standing ovation from the Madison Square Garden crowd.

“We should have kept the white ones on,” SU coach Jim Boeheim said. “They didn’t know who we were. They didn’t know where we were. We should have just left it that way.”

“We should have kept the orange-and-white uniforms,” countered center Craig Forth, referencing how Syracuse outscored South Carolina, 27-24, while committing the ultimate fashion faux pas, mismatching shorts and shirts.

Apparently, both Syracuse and South Carolina received word that they would be the home team, forcing Syracuse’s crackerjack equipment crew to scramble for the proper outfits.

South Carolina coach Dave Odom seemed to not mind following the win, offering this on Syracuse’s trio of uniform styles: “One thing that I would expect is unarguable, and that is in the storied history of Gamecock basketball, there has never been a team that has beaten a team that has worn three different sets of jerseys on the same night. That I would wager. You go back and look at it, and if that’s true, I expect that to be in our media guide.”

McNeil reappears

One scribe on press row said it best: “Call off the man hunt. We finally found Jeremy McNeil.”

After never leaving the bench during the first three NIT games, McNeil finally touched the hardwood eight minutes into the first half last night.

McNeil proceeded to allow South Carolina’s Tony Kitchings to slip by him for a rebound, foul Kitchings and cost Preston Shumpert a free throw with a senseless lane violation.

All that landed McNeil back to the bench for good after just three minutes.

“I was too anxious,” McNeil said. “That’s why I messed up. My arms, my legs, I was so excited to be out there, I was jumping all over the place.”

SU’s other two centers, Forth and Billy Celuck, didn’t do much better. The trio of big men combined for just seven points and six rebounds, and Forth in particular was beaten high and low for rebounds and layups.

Storyteller

Three players accompanied Odom to his postgame press conference. Of the three, only Aaron Lucas talked.

The other two, Rolando Howell and Jamel Bradley, just sat around and laughed at Odom.

Actually, all three players often rolled their eyes, shook their heads or smiled broadly during Odom’s unusually long press conference. The Gamecocks’ coach took each question and answered with a five-minute sermon, amusing and boring his players. Odom launched into lectures on the zone defense, his resilient team and Memphis head coach John Calipari.

“It’s tough to take,” Howell later joked. “When he gets going and telling one of his stories, he won’t be stopped. You don’t even try.”

This and that

By losing last night, Syracuse ensured that it will not become the first team to win both the preseason NIT and postseason NIT. … Odom, in his first year with the team after a successful tenure at Wake Forest, won his 300th career game last night. … Odom is no stranger to the NIT. Two seasons ago, his Demon Deacons won the NIT championship. … Syracuse will remain in New York, practicing here today in anticipation of the season finale against Temple.

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Published on March 26, 2002 at 12:00 pm