The horn sounded ending regulation, and Paul Harris walked over to a stunned Syracuse huddle trying to make sense of what had transpired over the last few minutes.

The Orange was up by seven points with 59 seconds remaining against Georgetown, and had led by as many as 16 points in the second half. The win seemed in hand, until the Hoyas scored 12 points in a span of 46 seconds near the end of the second half. Suddenly, the Orange found itself preparing for overtime.

As Harris approached the bench, he saw teammate Jonny Flynn with a dumbfounded ‘How did we get here?’ look on his face. Try as he might, Harris couldn’t help but feel the same.

‘I’m like ‘Just forget it, just forget it,” Harris said. ‘Cause I was thinking like, ‘How did we get here?’, too. If we keep dwelling on it, we might end up losing it.’

The Orange came out of the huddle and scored three seconds into the half – on a 3-pointer by shooting guard Eric Devendorf – and went on to a 98-94 overtime win over rival Georgetown in front of 31,841 fans at the Carrier Dome.

Syracuse (19-7, 7-6 Big East), losers of five of six games before Saturday, moved back above .500 in the conference with five games left on the schedule before the Big East tournament starts.

After playing an impressive 12 minutes to open the second half – ‘as well as we’ve played all year’ according to Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim – Syracuse found itself up by 16 points at the 8:14 mark. From there, Georgetown slowly chipped away at the lead, until an onslaught near the end of the game when the Hoyas stunned the Orange with its late-game surge, capped by a long 3 by Chris Wright with 13 seconds left, that tied the game at 83.

As impressive as the comeback was, center Arinze Onuaku said with the intensity of the Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry, even a comeback like that didn’t really surprise him.

‘In a rivalry like this, it’s almost like it’s meant to happen,’ Onuaku said. ‘The guys, they shot great. They hit about four or five 3’s at the time.’

After taking a lead to start the overtime period, Syracuse once again found itself in a fight when GU forward Austin Freeman hit a jumper to give Georgetown a one-point lead. Boeheim called timeout and drew up a play for SU shooting guard Eric Devendorf. The Orange came back onto the court, Onuaku set a screen, and Devendorf drilled a 3 from the left side of the arc, igniting the SU crowd.

‘That was almost a do-or-die shot,’ Boeheim said. ‘When you lose the lead like that in overtime and you’ve lost a 16-point lead, you’ve got to strike back. And Eric making that 3 was a big play.’

The shot was Devendorf’s fifth made 3-pointer of the game, all of which came in the second half or overtime. During the first half, with Devendorf and Flynn staying quiet, Onuaku and shooting guard Andy Rautins paced the Orange with seven and 11 points, respectively, keeping the Orange in the game and helping it to a one-point halftime lead.

But after the break Syracuse pulled ahead, lost its lead and pulled ahead again, Devendorf and Flynn were the constants. After putting up only seven combined points in the first half, the two combined for 41 of Syracuse’s 65 points after the break. Flynn finished 25 points and career-high 13 assists. Devendorf was right behind with 23 points.

During his postgame press conference, Boeheim took a moment to reflect on the magnitude of the win. For the man who has been coached in 65 matchups against Georgetown, this one will stand out.

‘This was a tremendous win in overtime,’ Boeheim said. ‘This game will be in the Georgetown-Syracuse classic boat very quickly.’

kbaustin@syr.edu

Published on February 14, 2009 at 12:00 pm