In the first half against Villanova on Saturday, Tyler Ennis had a relatively quiet nine points.

Syracuse got off to a horrid start and when it finally clawed back into the game, its 20-0 run was punctuated by C.J. Fair putback dunks and Trevor Cooney 3s.

Ennis still finished the half ranking second on the team in points, but did so in a supporting role.

Then all that changed in the second half when each play by Ennis was better than the last, and each possession presented a calmer freshman point guard than the one before. Ennis’ 20 points and remarkably composed play helped No. 2 Syracuse (12-0) upend No. 8 Villanova (11-1) 78-62 in front of 28,135 in the Carrier Dome on Saturday, handing the Wildcats their first loss of the season.

For Ennis, Villanova’s high-energy, man-to-man defense opened a gaping hole in the paint, and he continually took advantage.

“I thought he was just tremendous,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. “They are a tremendous pressure defensive team and we didn’t get a lot of assists because they weren’t helping and he was finishing.”

At the onset of the game, Ennis’ stage was set.

Two undefeated, Top 10 teams. A renewed Big East rivalry. His older brother Dylan Ennis coming off the bench for Villanova. His family sitting two rows up across from the SU bench, all wearing the same T-shirt — with Villanova and Syracuse logos and the name Ennis next to each.

The Wildcats bothered SU early in the game by pressing up on its ball handlers in the half court, and Villanova head coach Jay Wright used Dylan off the bench to pressure his younger brother.

“I didn’t really look at him as my older brother today,” Ennis said. “He played really well. He may not have scored as much as people would expect but I thought his defense kept them in the game.”

Each brother tallied small victories in the one-on-one match up, but Ennis found a first-half scoring rhythm with his brother on the bench.

That was when he blew by Ryan Arcidiacono on a stop-and-go move and finished a reverse layup in a crowded paint to give the Orange its first lead of the game at 27-25. Then almost two minutes later he hung in the air, drew a foul and finished a lefty floater before sinking the free throw after a timeout.

And on maybe his best play of the first frame, Ennis fumbled the ball in the paint on the break before locating a wide-open Cooney in the thick of SU’s backbreaking run.

It was as if Ennis used telepathy to find him. Cooney drained the 3 without using the rim.

“You have a guy like that, it just makes playing the game of basketball so much better,” Cooney said. “He’s just going to come down, read the team and do everything right.”

Ennis’ 11-point second half was even better than his output in the first, as he used his slashing ability and basketball IQ to catapult the Orange to the double-digit win.

Whenever Villanova’s half-court trap agitated the SU offense, Ennis demanded the ball and pacified any danger by calmly calling another play up top. And with the shot clock ticking away minutes into the frame he quickly glanced at it, drove to his right and finished an underhand finger roll around an outstretched JayVaughn Pinkston.

With another heroic Cooney half in the rearview mirror — the sophomore helped the Orange back into the game with three timely first-half 3s — Ennis took over.

“That’s what he does,” Boeheim said. “He is very good with the basketball.”

Ennis was a lot of things on Saturday afternoon.

He was a brother. A scorer. The quarterback of Syracuse’s zone. And in the game’s waning moments, the team’s closer at the free-throw line.

But being a freshman is still his most important persona, even if it’s the one that rarely surfaces on the court. In the first half, “He’s a freshman” chants could faintly be heard throughout the Dome. Then each time he navigated past a Villanova defender and pushed Syracuse closer to its best win of the season, they grew louder.

But apparently not loud enough.

Said Ennis, through laughter: “I haven’t heard it yet.”

Published on December 28, 2013 at 8:09 pm

Contact Jesse: jcdoug01@syr.edu | @dougherty_jesse