CINCINNATI 71 SYRACUSE 68
The Cincinnati Bearcats were a part of the ugliest moment of this college basketball season. On Friday night, they got to be part of one of its most glorious.
Cincinnati, three months removed from a bloody brawl against hometown rival Xavier, scored a shocking upset of top-seeded and No. 2-ranked Syracuse, 71-68, in a Big East semifinal at the Garden.
PHOTOS: BEARCATS BOUNCE ORANGE IN BIG EAST SEMIFINALS
The same players who apologized on camera for giving their school and their city a black eye were standing at midcourt after surviving the Orange’s furious comeback with their index fingers held high. The Bearcats (23-9) will play in their first Big East championship game Saturday night against seventh-Louisville, which ousted Notre Dame in the late semifinal.
“My guys played with unbelievable toughness,” Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said. “When our toughness rises to the level of our talent, we have a great team. We can beat anybody.”
For Syracuse (31-2), the loss isn’t likely to cost it a No. 1 seeding when the NCAA Tournament field is announced on Sunday.
“Most national championships — not all but a lot — have been won by teams that lose in their conference tournament,” Orange coach Jim Boeheim said. “As much as we wanted to win this tournament, the tournament that starts next week is the only one that matters.”
Cincinnati looked as if it might cruise in taking down the beast of the Big East when it was up 17 in the first half, but it couldn’t close the door on Syracuse until the final seconds. A Dion Waiters 3-pointer with 17.1 seconds left cut the Cincy lead to 68-66, and Syracuse fouled JaQuon Parker quickly. He made one of two at the line, and then Cronin made the strategic move of having Cashmere Wright foul Waiters with 5.4 seconds left instead of letting him try for a game-tying three.
Waiters hit both foul shots to get the Orange within 69-68. Syracuse pressed on the ensuing possession, but White Plains product Sean Kilpatrick got off an outlet pass to Justin Jackson, who sealed it with a breakaway dunk.
Kilpatrick and Yancy Gates each scored 18 and Wright and Dion Dixon each scored 11 for the Bearcats. Waiters had 28 points, including seven 3-pointers, and Fab Melo had 11 points for Syracuse.
Kris Joseph had nine points and no rebounds, Scoop Jardine had six points and five turnovers and Boeheim pointed out that their play was a factor.
“When we played our best, Scoop and Kris have been there,” he said. “Scoop wasn’t there. Kris didn’t get a rebound in 33 minutes.”
Cincinnati didn’t look like a team that was playing in its first Big East semifinal as it made six of its first seven threes to take a 25-8 lead less than 10 minutes into the game — “They were on fire,” Waiters said — and put the Orange into the sort of deficit it saw only when it lost its other game Jan. 21 against Notre Dame. The ’Cuse managed to get within 35-23.
“We’ve come a long way since that,” Gates said of the Dec. 10 fight. “We became a better team as the season went on. Tonight, this is what we’re capable of becoming.”
Jefferson’s Thaddeus Hall is a talker. He talks to his opponents, to his teammates. He smiles, gesticulates. He’s not bashful on the basketball court.But with his team down a point in the waning seconds of the PSAL Class AA semifinal against Wings on Saturday, Hall managed to back up his talking with a pair of clutch baskets that propelled top-seeded Jefferson to a 72-68 win over No. 4 Wings that should etch his name in postseason lore.“That’s what big-time players do,” said Jefferson coach Lawrence Pollard. “I felt confident with the ball in his hands.”With Wings leading 68-67 and 18.9 seconds left, Hall, a 6-5 lefty shooting guard, sliced into the lane with Wings’ Justin Jenkins tightly guarding him and muscled up a layup while getting fouled. The bucket gave his team a 69-68 lead. Hall’s free throw with 7.7 seconds left made it a two-point game. Wings had a chance to even the score or even win it but lost possession of the ball on the inbounds play when the ball was deflected by Jefferson’s Jaquan Lynch into the hands of Hall who sprinted in for a wild one-handed dunk as time expired, setting off a celebration that had Pollard vault off the bench as if he bounced off a trampoline.Hall finished with 22 points and won a mesmerizing one-on-one second-half matchup with Jenkins, who ended up with a game-high 23 points, 19 in the first half against constant double teams and nearly willed his team to victory.“It just feels really good to finally get to the Garden,” said Hall, who scored his team’s final five points and helped the Orange Wave make the program’s first ‘AA’ title game. “I kind of made up my mind that I wasn’t going to let us lose. I was able to make the plays to get us over the top.”Jefferson (25-6) trailed by four, 68-64 with 1:04 to play after Jenkins hit a double clutch runner in the lane and Jaequan Brown hit one of two free throws. But Jefferson refused to go away, and it was unlikely player with big-shot experience who helped the Orange Wave mount a comeback. With 50.7 seconds left, Nazai Stokes buried a three-pointer to cut the deficit to 68-67.“He’s hit some big shots for us before so I wasn’t surprised that he hit that shot in that situation,” said Jefferson’s Lynch, who finished with 16 and dished out several assists.Brown hit a difficult runner in the lane with 37.8 seconds left that would have given Wings (25-4) a 70-67 lead, but he was whistled for a controversial offensive charge, drawing the ire of Wings coach Billy Turnage, who was in his third straight semifinal, desperate to make the title game.“That’s a horrendous call,” Turnage said. “The referees aren’t the ones who should decide the outcome of a game.”As it was, Hall was the one who took matters into his own hands, literally. 