For 35 minutes of basketball, Pittsburgh coach Ben Howland tried to revel in the center of the Carrier Dome spotlight.

After each foul, he strolled to midcourt and gazed upwards, only to be warned back to his sideline by an official. He conferred with his coaching staff on the hardwood during timeouts before a referee would usher the group back toward its bench.

But, after a 42-14 second-half run propelled Howland’s Panthers (21-4, 9-3 Big East) to a 75-63 win over No. 23 Syracuse (18-7, 7-4), the Pittsburgh coach had free reign. Howland pumped his fists all the way to center court and breathed in what he called “maybe the biggest” win of his coaching career.

“He was speechless,” said Panther guard Brandin Knight, who had 16 points and nine assists. “He really didn’t have much to say. He congratulated us, and after that he didn’t really know what to say.”

It should have been the Orangemen left speechless.

Syracuse, ahead 35-27 at halftime, stormed into the second half, building a 47-33 lead with less than 14 minutes to play thanks to eight consecutive points from Preston Shumpert.

From there, excellent rebounding, fast-break baskets and clutch long-range shooting keyed a 28-point swing for the Panthers in a stretch of just 12 minutes.

“Late in the game, they grabbed long rebounds, and we didn’t get back well to defend the fast break,” Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. “This is really the first game where we have gotten beat like that. Also Knight hit the two big threes, and we couldn’t answer them on the offensive end.”

After a first half in which six Syracuse players tallied more than five points, Preston Shumpert became the sole offensive weapon in the last 20 minutes.

He scored 64 percent of the Orangemen’s second-half points, while SU’s two other offensive threats, Kueth Duany and DeShaun Williams, combined for just six points on 0-for-6 three-point shooting.

“We just didn’t get much motion in our offense the second half,” Duany said. “Guys were just standing around and watching Preston go. That didn’t work.”

Neither did Syracuse’s once-vaunted zone defense. Pittsburgh abused the zone from both the outside and the inside. SU guards didn’t fold in toward the basket, allowing Pittsburgh to escape with 10 more rebounds and 11 more second-chance points.

The Panthers’ outside shooters extended the zone with six three-pointers, including three in a crucial two-minute span late in the game.

With just more than five minutes left, Knight drained a triple from the right side to put Pittsburgh up by five. On the Panthers’ next possession, Knight walked the ball up, hesitated as if he would pass and launched another three from the top of the circle.

“I didn’t want to look because I knew it was going in,” James Thues said. “That is just the way things have been going lately. When they started hitting those threes, I knew we might be in trouble.”

So did the 21,935 fans in attendance, who saw an opponent dissect Syracuse in the second half for the third game in a row.

Syracuse relished a six-point halftime lead before falling to Rutgers by 12 on Feb. 2. The Orangemen then led by 17 at halftime before allowing West Virginia to nearly win last Monday. But nothing compared to the 28-point swing yesterday.

“You can’t just let teams jump on you like that in the second half,” SU center Craig Forth said. “I don’t know what happened, but we better figure it out. We lost our wind or something.”

“When we got down, we got more aggressive,” Howland said. “We just said, ‘The hell with this. We’re gonna start playing.’ The whole second half we were able to get on them just by playing good defense and rebounding.

“To be able to beat them on their home floor is just unbelievable.”

-30-

Published on February 10, 2002 at 12:00 pm