Terrence Roberts and Darryl Watkins danced and smiled on the top of the scorer’s table with a thousand or so students staring up in appreciation. Demetris Nichols’ white Syracuse jersey was covered with orange blotches, the byproduct of excited fans painted orange sweating in a mid-court mosh-pit that hasn’t been approached, much less duplicated, in a few years.

On Saturday, it’s back to reality for Syracuse. It’s back to beefing up the NCAA Tournament resume. But on Monday night, a 72-58 win over No. 9 Georgetown, it was a chance for SU to celebrate the biggest win of its season.

It was the win that put SU over the top. The debate can stop. The spring break plans can start.

But more importantly, on a Senior Night when the legacies of SU’s six seniors were discussed, this win will add another chapter to their stories – and undoubtedly the most important. Demetris Nichols, Terrence Roberts and Darryl Watkins, who enrolled in SU together in 2003, along with redshirt senior Matt Gorman, the last player link to the 2003 national championship, and walk-ons Todd Burach and Ross DiLiegro, will now have one final March Madness to redeem themselves for the first-round exits in the last two NCAA Tournaments.

‘We think about it,’ Watkins said. ‘We have to make a run in the Tournament.’

He stopped and offered clarification.

‘The NCAA Tournament,’ Watkins added, just to make sure the record was straight.

It’s what has plagued the class after spending the past two seasons building up expectations in the Big East tournament and then squandering them the following week. Now is their chance to change that.

When Jim Boeheim approached the lectern for his post-game press conference, he kept talking about the seniors. Throughout the season, it’s always been the seniors. There’s something captivating about this year’s senior class.

The four scholarship seniors and two walk-ons have experienced four years when SU basketball has been at its apex in popularity after winning the program’s first national title in 2003. But since that April night in New Orleans, the memories of Carmelo Anthony parading around the Superdome court with his smile all the way from Baton Rouge to Shreveport have dissipated to the first-round exits that plagued SU the last two Marches.

‘Now we have a chance to put a little more stuff in our history books,’ Watkins said.

That was part of the celebration. It was all connected. It wasn’t just about a win over the hottest team in the nation. It wasn’t just about a win on Senior Night. It was a win that provided these seniors extra life.

‘Coach said after the game, ‘I don’t want to go (to the Tournament) if we can’t win,” said DiLiegro, who entered his second game of the season in his last time playing in the Carrier Dome and was on the sideline for both first-round exits and the Sweet 16 bid two years ago. ‘We want to go there and get something done, and now I think we’ll get a chance to go after this win.’

DiLiegro was celebrating with the students who rushed the court, the ones who painted their faces and made signs for ESPN, the ones who camped out in a Syracuse February and blush when passing by an SU basketball player on the quad. Nichols was there, too, the star of the game and the star of the season. Roberts and Watkins were on the scorer’s table leading the celebration – a tactful move Roberts devised for two reasons.

‘I really planned on being out there with them, but my trainer said if you get pushed the wrong way, you’ll be in more pain than you’re already in,’ Roberts said, referring to the torn meniscus in his right knee. ‘But I just jumped up on the table, and we got some great pictures of (former SU players Hakim Warrick and Josh Pace) the last time they got a big win, so Mook and I would get some good pictures if we were up there, and they rushed hard.’

He was laughing and smiling, which Roberts only does after Syracuse wins. Then his face became serious when he summed up his quote by saying something stock about how it was a good win for the Orange.

Because Roberts knows what his classmates know. Monday was a great win and a better memory, but the final memory will be determined in March.

Zach Berman is the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear occasionally. You can hear him or the other men’s basketball beat writers on 570-WSYR after every Syracuse road game. E-mail him at zberman@syr.edu.

Published on February 26, 2007 at 12:00 pm