A day before the NCAA Tournament began, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim lamented about how the season could have been different had Preston Shumpert been healthy and confident the whole time.

Little did he know, but a final opportunity still lay ahead.

In Monday’s second-round NIT game at the Carrier Dome, Syracuse outlasted Butler in overtime, 66-65, with the help of a 36-point effort from its top player and active, defensive efforts from everybody else.

At one point in the first half, the Orangemen (22-11) trailed, 35-22. But when SU needed it most, two team staples – Shumpert’s shooting and a destructive zone – rushed to the aid.

“For the first time in awhile, we just played basketball,” center Craig Forth said. “This is best we have played in a while as a team. I can’t remember the last time we played this well together.”

Even with Syracuse benefiting from intense play and a boisterous crowd of 5,904, the Bulldogs (26-6) still had a chance to win with 4.3 seconds remaining in overtime. Following the inbounds pass, senior point guard Thomas Jackson scurried the length of the court and dished a pass in the key to Rylan Hainje, who led the team in scoring this season. His layup attempt swerved off the rim just after the buzzer sounded.

“I was comfortable going with Thomas and letting him make the right decision,” Butler head coach Todd Lickliter said. “Maybe we should have done something different. You’re always going to second guess. If he throws it a split-second sooner and Ryan makes it, then we say, ‘Hey, what a great play.’ But I’ll never second-guess Thomas.”

In the first half, Boeheim was doing the second guessing.

Syracuse opened the game with a man-to-man defense, as Butler jumped ahead, making six of its first 11 three-point shots. Diminutive guard Brandon Miller hit from beyond the arc three times within a seven-minute stretch, briefly pushing Shumpert’s shooting accuracy to the background.

At that point, Boeheim switched to a match-up zone that would hold Butler to just 21 second-half points.

“We made a good switch to the match-up zone,” said Boeheim, who noted that most teams in Butler’s Horizon League stay away from the zone. “Sometimes great shooting teams play better against man-to-man than they do against zone.

“They don’t see the zone normally. We couldn’t even get a tape of them playing against the zone.”

The success of SU’s defense coincided with the energetic play of senior Billy Celuck who, like Shumpert, played in his final game at the Dome. Celuck failed to score, but his quickness under the hoop allowed the Orangemen to commit four defenders to the perimeter.

“They were shooting their shots from everywhere, and they all fell,” Celuck said after he pulled in five rebounds in 17 minutes. “I knew where they were going, but we couldn’t stop it. Everything would fall. We really spread out the zone. I had to cover the whole middle. It didn’t bother me being the only one down there. I am pretty intimidating.”

While Celuck may have intimidated with his size, Shumpert did it with his shooting. Butler briefly regained the lead, 51-45, with 9:09 to play, but Shumpert willed SU back, exhibiting uncharacteristic emotion.

Syracuse regained the lead when the senior from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., arched a three-pointer from the right wing that danced for a complete second on the rim before swinging through the net.

Shumpert waltzed downcourt with his mouth open, and the crowd rose to its feet, where it would remain for the entire overtime period.

“Preston played with a lot of emotion,” point guard James Thues said. “You always do that, but he was hitting the shots today, so that can fire a team up.”

Butler pushed ahead with less than a minute to play in regulation on a Joel Cornette dunk. Hakim Warrick answered quickly, sending the game to overtime with a layup.

That’s where Shumpert scored six of the team’s final eight points, including a pivotal three that gave SU a 66-60 lead.

“Shumpert basically put them on his back,” Lickliter said.

Which is exactly what Boeheim had been hoping for all season. This was the sneak preview that Orangemen fans had been waiting for – albeit after the main event had already ended.

“He’s as good of a scorer as anyone we faced all year,” Lickliter said. “When he’s going, it’s tough to stop, and we saw that today.”

-30-

Published on March 18, 2002 at 12:00 pm