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Sonic youth Led by freshmen, Syracuse charges into title gamePosted: Sunday April 06, 2003 1:59 AMUpdated: Sunday April 06, 2003 6:50 AM
NEW ORLEANS -- You'd seen the highlights; you'd heard all the hype. And still you could hardly believe your eyes. Here was celebrated Syracuse freshman Carmelo Anthony, under the bright lights of the Superdome and in front of millions of CBS viewers, delivering the biggest performance of his 34-game college career, scoring 33 points and grabbing 14 rebounds against Texas. Here was fabled classmate Gerry McNamara, in an environment seemingly as distant as imaginable from his hometown of Scranton, Pa., scoring 19 points, collecting four crucial steals and running the offense like a seasoned vet. Here were two teenagers leading 58-year-old Jim Boeheim to his third national championship game with a 95-84 Final Four victory. Kansas, Monday night's other title participant, is the model for why experience matters in the NCAA tournament. Syracuse is the model for why talent can run just as deep. "A lot of people would be unhappy if the freshmen win the national championship," said McNamara. "They say you need senior leadership." The Orangemen's journey hasn't been four years in the making like Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich's. There was no valuable lesson learned from a prior Final Four, no painful tourney loss to serve as motivation. They are here because of two fearless, electrifying freshmen who played above and beyond their years all season long, just as they did Saturday against Texas.
"They're unusual freshmen. I believed that from the beginning," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said of his two leading scorers and undisputed leaders. "These two guys got an extraordinary opportunity this year because we really had to run the things we do through them. Every game, they've played like upperclassmen." Not since Michigan's Fab Five reached the title game in 1992 has a team so dependent on freshmen done this much in the tournament. Not since Louisville's Pervis Ellison dropped 25 points and 11 boards on Duke in the 1986 title game has a freshman put on a show in the Final Four like the one Anthony did Saturday. With Texas consistently draping two defenders on him, Anthony still would manage to twist and turn his 6-foot-8, 220-pound frame toward the basket. He scored Syracuse's first 11 points of the second half, then transformed on a dime into distribution mode, helping key an 18-5 run without scoring a point. "Probably the hardest defensive job I've had since I've been in college," said Longhorns guard Royal Ivey. "Six-eight, explosive, strong. He'll shoot over you, drive you, spin move, everything. It's pretty tough." "Every point they score, you can almost attribute to Carmelo when he's in the game," said Texas coach Rick Barnes, "because he makes you help, he makes you rotate. We tried to run different guys at Carmelo. If you don't get all five guys rotating the way they need to, they're going to come up with something." While the 6-2, 172-pound McNamara doesn't share Anthony's unreal athleticism, he makes up for it in toughness. Several times in the second half, with Texas threatening to steal control of a tight game, he'd either hit the big shot or find someone who could, while defensively diving on the floor for every loose ball and coming up with several big steals. "Gerry's a scrappy little kid," said Anthony. "He gets a lot of steals; he also gets people open." As the late Al McGuire often said, a freshman is no longer a freshman when you get to this time of year. In Anthony's and McNamara's cases, though, it's as if they never were. "I feel like a senior already," said the almost certainly NBA-bound Anthony. "I feel I've been playing on this level for a long time." "I've been in a lot of big games," said McNamara, who scored 41 points in the first half of his high school team's state semifinal game last season, "and Carmelo's been in a lot of big games. We come from programs where we played a lot of great teams." Monday, they will play the biggest game of their young lives, and the logical instinct is to say they'll be in over their heads against the senior-led Jayhawks. Wouldn't that have happened by now if it was going to? This is a team that, in spite of its youth, has been remarkably consistent all season. Two losses to Connecticut are their only blemishes since January. And their most important games yet -- the Elite Eight against Oklahoma and Saturday against Texas -- were possibly their two best performances of the season. Nevertheless, the Orangemen admit even they have undersold themselves. "We knew we could win and we could beat a couple teams," said Anthony. "But no, we didn't realize we could be here." In the end, that's probably helped. Among the vaunted freshmen's best attributes is their sheer obliviousness -- to the pressure, to their surroundings, to the magnitude of what they've accomplished. While putting on one of the best individual performances in Final Four history Saturday, Anthony often sported an ear-to-ear grin. He playfully exchanged words with Barnes and Texas star T.J. Ford in the heat of the action, and he chuckled while answering the interrogations of a swarm of media. He and McNamara may not be able to hide their youth forever. But they need to do it for only one more night. Stewart Mandel covers college sports for SI.com. Got a comment, question or scoop for Stewart? Click here. |
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