NEW YORK-Syracuse either has played from significantly behind or let opposing teams come back nine times this season. With five losses, SU hasn’t felt the consequences.

In its last two Big East games, SU played catch-up in Sunday’s 64-60 loss to St. John’s and played comeback in Wednesday’s 77-76 win over Cincinnati. SU’s poor start caught up in Sunday’s game.

A lot of Syracuse’s inconsistent play results from turnovers. Against the Red Storm, the Orange lost the ball 15 times. Eric Devendorf turned it over four times.

‘This game was pretty much the way we have been playing,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘We made some bad turnovers. We gave them some easy baskets.’

The bad thing for SU (15-5, 4-2 in the Big East) is it has shown little signs of improvement. Syracuse has averaged 17 turnovers in Big East play and junior point guard Josh Wright has averaged 3.15 turnovers a game.

‘We got to make better decisions,’ Wright said. ‘Cut down on trying to make the pretty play and make the simple play.’

SU forward Paul Harris made two poor passes to Eric Devendorf on fast breaks, one of which came when he tried a spin move. Harris blames the problem on poor communication.

Syracuse was lucky none of its 10 first half turnovers resulted in St. John’s baskets. Still, the turnovers halted SU from grabbing a halftime lead after coming from behind by as many as 11 points in the first half. St. John’s led 29-28 at halftime.

In the second half, though, St. John’s started taking advantage of SU’s sloppy play. Watkins turned the ball over to SJU’s Qa’rraan Calhoun for a slam dunk and a 39-34 lead at the 15:15 mark. Trailing, 39-36, later in the game, SU forward Demetris Nichols turned the ball over on an inbounds play. That turnover led to St. John’s’ Larry Wright converting on a 3-point play.

An offensive foul on Devendorf resulted in Eugene Lawrence hitting 1-of-2 free throws for a 57-55 lead with 2:28 left in the game.

‘We got to keep playing our game,’ Devendorf said ‘Obviously we got to cut down on the (turnovers). There’s some mental errors right there. Just find the open guy and we’ll be all right.’

That’s the same mantra SU has been following all season, although it’s been the same problem throughout the season. But through 20 games, Boeheim can’t make any dramatic changes.

‘We made some bad decisions and bad passes,’ Boeheim said. ‘Maybe we can’t handle the ball very well, I guess. It shouldn’t be that way. But that’s what appears to be after 20 games.’

Published on January 20, 2007 at 12:00 pm