KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — By all statistical measures, Syracuse never should have had a chance to win late in Saturday’s game at Tennessee. But, after trailing by 17 points at halftime and shooting just three free throws and grabbing just three offensive rebounds through 37 minutes, Syracuse somehow forced a tie game with less than three minutes to play.

That’s when SU ran into an improbable difference-maker it couldn’t overcome.

Jenis Grindstaff, a scrappy guard making his first start of the season, dished out a timely assist and grabbed a devastating offensive rebound to propel the unranked Volunteers to a 66-62 victory over Syracuse, which dropped four places in the polls to No. 12.

‘It just came together for me tonight, and it came together for our team,’ said Grindstaff, whose team drew 16,216 at Thompson-Boiling Arena. ‘I didn’t really expect to play this big a part in a game like this. I hoped to, but it is just unbelievable that it turned out like this.’

With just under three minutes to play and the score tied at 58, Grindstaff drove to his left, swiveled back to his right, and bulleted a pass through the middle of the SU zone. The ball found wide-open Elgrace Wilborn, whose layup gave Tennessee (7-9, 1-3 SEC) the lead and ended the rally by SU (16-3, 5-0 Big East).

Two minutes later, Grindstaff — who scored a team-high 18 points to go with four assists and five rebounds — sealed the victory by following his own errant three-point try to grab the board. DeShaun Williams fouled Grindstaff, who hit both free throws.

‘We just didn’t rebound the ball when they missed,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘That was the problem. Grindstaff gets the last shot, misses and they get that ball. We would have had a chance to come down and tie the game. If we could just rebound a little better. We had every opportunity.’

Most of which came after the break.

In the first half, the Orangemen failed to extend their zone to guard Tennessee’s best long-range shooters, aiding the Vols in connecting for five three-pointers and 58-percent shooting before the break.

Meanwhile, Syracuse struggled to score. Grindstaff blanketed Preston Shumpert, holding him scoreless for the first 18 minutes. Shumpert lofted only four shots in the first half.

‘In the first half I knew the defense was going to key on me, so I tried to get the ball inside a little bit and try to find open guys,’ Shumpert said. ‘But I wasn’t doing enough. I don’t know, I guess I just got to penetrate and find the open guys, but early on I didn’t do any of that.’

Shumpert came out strong in the second half, scoring 10 points in the first nine minutes to bring SU within one. A minute later, Shumpert found Williams for a three-pointer that gave Syracuse its second lead of the game and first since it led 2-0.

But from there, neither Shumpert nor Williams could make a shot.

‘When we came back, they weren’t sure what they were doing,’ Boeheim said. ‘They were just hoping. We got every opportunity we would like to have, and we got the ball right where we wanted it. We just missed some shots.’

‘We had open looks, but we just didn’t knock them down,’ forward Kueth Duany said. ‘We had enough open looks to win the game, we just didn’t do it. DeShaun and Preston hit those shots in their sleep, but we just didn’t make the shots at the crucial time.’

Or get the necessary rebounds. Centers Craig Forth and Jeremy McNeil, who both struggled with foul trouble, failed to box out Tennessee’s long, athletic slashers, who repeatedly tipped in missed shots in the second half. In all, SU surrendered 21 offensive rebounds, including the backbreaker collected by Grindstaff.

‘Tonight is the first game where Tennessee was really struggling,’ Boeheim said. ‘They looked like they were really struggling in the second half. If it wasn’t for the offensive rebounds, if it wasn’t for that, they wouldn’t have had any chance in the second half.’

Published on January 21, 2002 at 12:00 pm