Demetris Nichols had the lead right in front of him. The only debate was whether to slam it home or lay it in.

In the excitement of running down the court all alone after a steal Nichols went for the layup, but the ball tipped the rim on the way up and went out of bounds. A bucket would have put SU up one point with 30 seconds left.

It ended the hopes created by a furious second-half Orange comeback, a half in which SU once trailed by as many as 20 points.

After a 27-1 Wichita State run in the first half opened up a 14-point halftime lead, the Shockers hung on to defeat Syracuse, 64-61, Saturday night in front of 23,857 at the Carrier Dome.

It is the first loss of the season for No. 15 Syracuse (7-1).

‘I don’t even want to talk about the play,’ Nichols said. ‘It just happened. I missed this layup. It’s over.’

Forward Kyle Wilson made two free throws with 13 seconds remaining to put 17th-ranked Wichita State (6-0) up by three.

The Orange’s last chance to force overtime was denied when Eric Devendorf’s 3-pointer missed the mark with four seconds left.

‘Tonight we made as good a comeback as you can possibly make against a very good basketball team,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘But you can’t wait that long to make that kind of comeback. It’s almost shocking that we were able to do that because they’re a veteran team and a good team. We played an unbelievable four minutes.’

Nichols, Syracuse’s leading scorer this season, shot just 2-for-14 from the field and finished with six points, by far his worst performance of the year. The Orange as a whole shot 36 percent, well below its season average.

‘It’s one of those days I guess,’ Nichols said. ‘It’s one of those days. But I can’t get down. I’ve just got to be positive and try my best to bounce back and be a leader and show my team that I can bounce back from this.’

Terrence Roberts and Paul Harris led the Orange with 14 points each. Harris scored all of his during the second-half comeback.

With 9:26 to go in the game, Sean Ogirri nailed a 3-pointer to put the Shockers back up by 19 points, its largest lead since the 17:25 mark of the second half.

But SU slowly crept back into the game. Dunks by Darryl Watkins, Harris and Mike Jones brought the Orange to within 15 with 5:15 left.

That’s when the bounces started going SU’s way.

Junior guard Josh Wright hit two free throws and a 3-pointer on consecutive possessions to cut the lead to 10. After a steal forced by the full court press, Roberts emphatically dunked the ball to make the score 61-53 with 4:02 remaining.

‘In that last seven minutes, that’s the way we should have been playing in the first 30 minutes of the game,’ Roberts said.

Harris finished a 3-point play to trim the lead to four and Roberts hit two free throws after an Ogirri miss on the other end to make it a two-point game. On its next possession, SU missed three shots, but grabbed three offensive rebounds until finally Watkins laid the ball in to tie the game at 61 apiece with 1:51 left.

They were the last points Syracuse scored.

‘It’s tough because I know we’re a way better team than they are,’ Roberts said.

The Orange outscored Wichita State 17-3 in the game’s final six minutes, but it wasn’t enough to combat a poor shooting first half. Wichita State opened up a 23-point lead in the first half with a 27-1 run that spanned 11 minutes and 15 seconds. The lone SU point came on a Devendorf free throw at 12:30. The Orange took twelve shots. None fell.

The Shockers’ sharp shooting was too much for the Orange to overcome. Wichita State shot 45.7 percent from the field in the first half and 7-of-17 from 3-point land.

Wilson led the Shockers with 17 points and Ogirri had 16.

‘We never should have been in the game,’ Boeheim said. ‘The game should have been a 20-point game. It was a hell of an effort to come back and we had a real good chance to win the game. I don’t think justice would have been served, but I would have liked to have it. But we played horrible for 35 minutes. That’s all I can say.’

Published on December 1, 2006 at 12:00 pm