DENVER – The embrace lasted about two seconds. That’s how much time showed on the clock when it started, and, after the buzzer, it quickly ended.

Hakim Warrick, who engulfed his teammate as the buzzer sounded, was the first one to get at Gerry McNamara yesterday, before McNamara’s family, before his coaches and, most especially, before Brigham Young.

McNamara ended with 43 points, a career-high, on 11-for-17 shooting, including 9-for-13 from 3-point range. All afternoon, BYU defenders leapt, fully extended, with just a hope of redirecting the ball that the Scranton, Pa., native kept throwing through the hoop. He kept Syracuse in the game with Warrick benched in the first half with three fouls. He ignited a crowd despondent after BYU built a 13-point, first-half lead. He had perhaps the game of his life.

‘I felt good and I just kept shooting,’ McNamara said. ‘This is the best game I’ve had in college, at least.’

Just in college? Well, perhaps, considering the time McNamara dropped 43 in the first half of his high school semi-final game and ended up with 56, beating an undefeated team that pounded Bishop Hannon by double digits the last time they met.

‘He didn’t miss a shot in that first half,’ Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said, recalling that recruiting trip. ‘That’s why, today, he wasn’t so quick to say it was his best game ever.’

Still, on a bigger stage at a higher level, yesterday was debatably better. By halftime, McNamara had 28, shot 6-for-7 from beyond the arc and 8-for-10 from the foul line. He continued to wow the crowd with each consecutive hit.

Would he ever miss? Just before the halftime buzzer, he air-balled the only missed shot of his first half. As he trotted off the court, some BYU fans chanted, ‘Air-ball!’ Others, still wide-eyed from the first half, bowed in respect.

After all, Hakim Warrick, whom McNamara called the nation’s best player just one day earlier, had 24 less points than McNamara. The sophomore couldn’t be all that bad.

‘It was great how he just turned the whole game around,’ Warrick said. ‘He did all that you can ask of him. He really carried the team on his back.’

And yesterday, it was a heavy load. McNamara doubled the combined total of his teammates, 28-14, in the first half, single-handedly keeping SU in the game. McNamara disintegrated BYU’s 37-24 lead with 13 of SU’s next 18 points, evening the score at 42.

‘If he didn’t shoot that well,’ BYU senior Mark Bigelow said, ‘we probably would have been up by 20 in the first half.’

Instead, McNamara played perhaps the greatest game in SU tournament history – certainly in recent memory – right up there with Carmelo Anthony’s 33-point, 14-rebound performance against Texas in the Final Four last year.

As for this season, clearly nothing comes close. Warrick’s 11-for-11 shooting game at Miami is a whisper compared to McNamara’s explosion yesterday.

Let’s just reiterate here. Forty-three points! This is the same McNamara who shot inconsistently all year, probably the result of a pestering groin injury.

Perhaps with the week off between SU’s 57-54 loss to Boston College in the Big East tournament, the groin healed a bit. After all, McNamara did the same thing he’s done all year. Yesterday ‘was just one of those days,’ as he repeated over and over as the same questions – asked in slightly different ways – poured on him for 30 minutes in the locker room.

But yesterday really wasn’t just one of those days. McNamara wanted the ball a little more yesterday, called for it a little louder and zig-zagged around picks a little quicker.

He and center Craig Forth worked together a bit better. Those double screens Forth set came a little quicker and bit harder.

And McNamara hit a bit more.

His touch became a sideshow, but not a distraction. Syracuse still pounded inside to Warrick, who ended up with 14 second-half points. The Orangemen still subbed in, as freshman Louie McCroskey gave McNamara a breather midway through the second half. They still played the way they wanted. And after a 2-for-17 game at Connecticut, a 3-for-12 game against Rutgers and a 1-for-9 game at Pittsburgh, so, too, did McNamara.

‘It’s ironic, because usually when we are playing against the Defensive Player of the Year (BYU’s Mike Hall), one of our guys usually ends up with 35 points,’ Boeheim said. ‘Gerry was in another world today, and I don’t think we’ll see the likes of that in forever. Half the time he was shooting behind the NBA mark. He knew we were about to go down with a big bang, that it was either him or home. I can’t think of anyone else who plays like that.’

That’s because, until yesterday, no other Syracuse player ever had.

Scott Lieber is an assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at smlieber@syr.edu.

Published on September 8, 2004 at 12:00 pm