DENVER — Leave it to a kind of fluke, once in a lifetime performance, a career sort of game, a thing legends are made of by an opposing player, to ultimately undo BYU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday in the Pepsi Center.
Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara poured in (gulp) 43 points — 9 more than his career high — to lift defending national champion Syracuse (22-7) to a come-from-behind 80-75 win over BYU (21-9).
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said his guard was on another planet, orbiting among the stars and it that was a performance he may never repeat again in human form.
"Gerry was in another world today, and I don't think we will see the likes of that in forever. I think half the time he was shooting behind the NBA mark," Boeheim said.
"It's definitely the best game I've ever played in college," McNamara said. "I had the game
of my life. That first half was what we needed, and I took advantage of it."
Almost alone, McNamara did in BYU.
"He doesn't score half those points and we probably win by 10 or 15," BYU coach Steve Cleveland said. McNamara easily scored half his team's points and he was guarded most of the game by the Mountain West's defensive player of the year, Cougar junior Mike Hall.
Cleveland spent extra time in the locker room after this one. His team, laden with seniors, was obviously distraught over the loss. BYU had many chances early and late to defeat Syracuse but could not make the plays down the wire. Or stop McNamara from beginning to end.
"This was tough, really tough, especially when we were up on them," senior guard Kevin Woodberry said.
McNamara's line read 11 of 17 from the field including a career-high 9 of 13 from beyond the arc and a whopping 12 of 16 from the free throw line. McNamara, a 6-foot-2 point guard, made one more 3-pointer than BYU's entire hot-shooting team and made one less free throw than all the Cougars combined.
"Gerry was as good as I have ever seen in college basketball," Boeheim said. "It's ironic, because usually when we are playing against the defensive player of the year (Mike Hall), one of our guys usually ends up getting around 35 points."
Syracuse overcame an 11-point Cougar first half lead to control the game 77-75 when Cougar senior Jake Shoff went to the line with 1:24 to play and missed a free throw. The Cougars scrambled to get the rebound and after a missed runner by Mark Bigelow, Rafael Araujo got confused over the shot clock and hoisted up an airball 3-point attempt when 25 seconds remained on the shot clock.
"It was a crazy time out there," Bigelow said. "And we missed some shots, I don't remember the sequence."
After a key defensive stop, Bigelow had a chance for a potential game-winning 3-pointer with 20 seconds left that misfired.
"We were scrambling at the end and kind of lost our composure and took a bad-choice 3-pointer," Cleveland said. "But we did have a chance to win and we did come up with stops at the other end in order to be in position."
For the Cougars, Araujo had 24, Bigelow and Hall added 17 points and Luiz Lemes managed 12.
The Cougars opened the game with a 3-point shooting exhibition over Syracuse' zone, making 8 of 12 from beyond the arc in the first nine minutes to lead 29-21. In the first five minutes, Syracuse made all five of its shots from the field but trailed by three points.
The Cougar bombs forced Syracuse to get out of its zone 10minutes after tipoff.
Hall started it off for the Cougars. With the Orangemen doubling down in their zone on Araujo, Hall hit three consecutive threes. Bigelow then knocked down a bomb and Luiz Lemes hit all three of his 3-ball tries.
When Lemes lofted an alley oop pass to Hall for a slam dunk at the 4:27 mark, the Cougars held an 11-point lead at 37-26.
But as quick as the Cougars got on top of Syracuse in the first half, McNamara blistered the Cougar defense, hitting 6 of 7 threes and converted 8 of 10 free throws for 28 points in 20 minutes.
Thanks to McNamara, who was guarded by Hall and Kevin Woodberry and even fouled attempting a three by Araujo, Syracuse climbed back to tie the game to tie at 42 before intermission.
In the opening half, the Cougars made 8 of 14 three-point shots and made 59 percent of their buckets, but with McNamara rarely missing, Syracuse answered with 61 percent including a rare 7 of 9 effort from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes.
McNamara's effort offset the foul trouble heaped on star forward Hakim Warrick, who played just 13 minutes in the first half, leaving with his third foul at the 7:01 mark with just 4 points.
"When they went out of the zone, we went to our first and second option, to get the ball to Araujo and Mark," Hall said. Because of that, both he and Lemes took fewer shots in the second half of the game.
The ploy worked offensively because Araujo hurt Syracuse, scoring 12 points in each half to end with his 24 plus a dozen rebounds. But the senior from Brazil got in foul trouble with some unwise decisions that put him on the bench with his fourth at the 14:20 mark and the game tied at 54.
At that stage, Syracuse used plays to Warrick to get to the free throw line and take control of the game. Araujo re-entered the game seven minutes later with the Cougars behind 69-66. The half dozen minutes without the big senior hurt the Cougars down the stretch.
"We used 12 fouls trying to guard Warrick," Cleveland said. "He's a tough guard for our team." Warrick had 20 points, 8 from the line.
Syracuse shot 53 percent to the Cougars' 47 but made 68 percent (11 of 16) from the 3-point line to BYU's 10 of 26 for 38 percent "I thought BYU played really well against us," Boeheim said. "We knew they shot around 34 percent from the 3-point line. You don't see a lot of zone with them, but we were prepared for the threes."
The Cougar venture in the NCAA ended with one and out — like all three in the Cleveland era. "I learned one thing this week and that's how important confidence is entering this thing. Our guys came in ready to play. We got the shots we wanted — even in the end. Despite Gerry's phenomenal night, we got the ball where we wanted."
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com