PITTSBURGH – Paul Harris jumped up from the bench, yelling and waving his arms in a fruitless attempt to change what he was watching: the game slipping away from his Syracuse teammates. But four fouls left him helpless on the sidelines.

In front of him, fellow forward Rick Jackson struggled down low, unable to use the full might of his 235-pound frame, as he worked with four fouls against Pittsburgh’s frontcourt duo of DeJuan Blair and Sam Young.

Syracuse was in trouble, and the Panthers knew precisely what to do. No. 4 Pittsburgh pounded the ball inside to key a decisive second-half run against the foul-plagued frontcourt of No. 8 Syracuse, en route to a 78-60 win in front of a capacity crowd of 12,508 at the Petersen Events Center.

‘We just took advantage of that,’ Blair said of SU’s foul trouble. ‘…Jackson was out for a minute, and Onuaku was out for a minute. With them two in, they’re a powerful team. I think they need each other, because without one of them they struggle a little bit.’

Blair and Young finished with a combined 42 points and 18 rebounds, as the Syracuse trio of Jackson, Harris and center Arinze Onuaku combined for 26 points and 18 boards.

Following a gutsy first half by the Orange (17-3, 5-2 Big East) – which it finished trailing by only three points – foul trouble started taking its toll in the opening seconds of the seconds half. And while SU guards Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf fell silent, Pitt was able to expand the margin enough to put away the Orange for good.

After a 12-2 run to take its first lead of the game late in the first half, Syracuse started coming undone. Harris, Onuaku and Jackson each picked up fouls in the final 1:37, to total three, two and two, respectively. Pitt went on a 4-0 run, but the damage was far greater than that.

The Orange started the second half with its entire frontcourt in foul trouble. After Jackson picked up his third foul at the 16:32 mark, Pitt went on a 6-0 run. During that stretch, Pittsburgh (17-1, 5-1 Big East) hit three buckets in the paint, two by Young and Blair against a visibly timid SU front line.

‘There were some crucial plays that we didn’t get the stop on,’ Onuaku said. ‘That opened the lead up a little bit.’

Harris picked up his fourth foul five minutes into the second half on a charging call. Pitt went on an 11-5 run over the next five minutes with Harris on the bench to take a 13-point lead. Syracuse tried to climb back, pulling as close as seven points, but the Panthers had all the cushion they needed.

As the half dragged on, the stat sheet began to balloon in favor of the Panthers. At halftime, Pitt edged Syracuse by three rebounds. By the end of the game, that margin was up to 12. The same was true for points in the paint: a four-point advantage turned into an 18-point edge as the second half dragged on.

‘You have to play smart versus playing hard defense,’ Jackson said. ‘You have to wall up, keep your hands up, and not try to go for blocks. They can score better because we’re not playing as hard ‘D’ as we usually would be.’

Blair, the leading rebounder in the Big East, finished with his 12th double-double of the season – 20 points and 12 rebounds.

‘Blair is a tremendous rebounder. He’s as good a rebounder as I’ve seen in this league in a long time,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘I thought he backed us down a little too easily tonight. We didn’t do a good job defensively against him tonight.’

After foul trouble struck, Syracuse resorted to a three-guard rotation, with Flynn, Devendorf and Rautins (who finished with a team-high 17 points) all playing at once, leading to some Pittsburgh-favorable matchups.

Two days after playing one of its most complete games of the year in a 93-74 win over Notre Dame, the Orange couldn’t muster a repeat performance. The Orange will try to finish its four-game stretch against top-20 teams with a 2-2 record when it takes on Louisville Saturday at the Carrier Dome.

With 3:17 left in the game, it finally ended for Harris when he picked up his fifth foul. As he walked off the court following his fifth foul – to the cadence of ‘left-right-left-right,’ courtesy of the Pitt student section – he just wanted another chance.

‘I hope we play them in the Big East tournament, I swear,’ Harris said. ‘If we play them, we’re not going to lose. I’m going to guarantee that I’m going to beat them. I swear to God, we’re going to beat them. I want them again.’

kbaustin@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm