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No. 20 Syracuse 83, St. Francis, N.Y. 51
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Life without Gerry McNamara started well for the Syracuse Orange.
Demetris Nichols scored 15 points, Darryl Watkins had 11 and five blocks, and No. 20 Syracuse beat St. Francis of New York 83-51 on Friday night in the season opener for both teams.
Playing for the first time in four years without McNamara, the fiery guard and last major link to the team that beat Kansas for the 2003 national championship, the Orange won easily as their big men dominated inside in a tough man-to-man defense.
"It was a good opening night," coach Jim Boeheim said. "I think defensively we played pretty good. We did a good job keeping them in front of us. We did a lot of nice things."
The game was the second of a doubleheader in the Black Coaches Association Invitational, a round-robin at the Carrier Dome that concludes Sunday. Syracuse will play Penn (0-1) on Saturday night, while St. Francis will meet Texas-El Paso (1-0). UTEP beat the Quakers 69-66 in Friday night's opener.
Josh Wright started in McNamara's spot at point guard and excelled with 11 points, nine assists and three turnovers.
"We just came out and attacked those guys and caught them off-guard," said Wright, who also had three steals. "I came out and made the right decisions and made the right plays. That's what I wanted to do, come out and put guys in the right position."
After missing eight of their first 11 shots, the Orange finally got untracked when Wright converted a driving layup off the glass at 16:00 to begin a 15-1 run that gave Syracuse a commanding lead it never squandered.
Terrence Roberts had seven points and 13 rebounds before a sore knee relegated him to the bench early in the second half, Eric Devendorf had 13 points, and heralded freshman Paul Harris finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Robert Hines led the Terriers with 14 points and Marcus Williams had 11. Allan Sheppard, the team's leading scorer last year with an 11.6 average, failed to score, missing 11 shots from the floor and two free throws.
"He played awful," St. Francis coach Brian Nash said of Sheppard. "He tried to do things that even he wasn't capable of doing."
Both teams struggled mightily at the outset, combining to make just five of the first 27 shots taken. Syracuse recovered to shoot 31.6 percent (12-for-28) in the period while holding the Terriers to 21.9 percent (7-for-32).
St. Francis also committed 26 turnovers in the game.
"I'm disappointed on how we took care of the basketball," Nash said. "We gave them so many easy opportunities."
The undersized Terriers, whose tallest starter was 6-foot-8 center James St. Robert, barely found any room to shoot and failed to score for a seven-minute span as the 6-11 Watkins, the 6-9 Roberts and 6-8 Nichols repeatedly clogged the lane.
"To get that many blocks was good," said Watkins, who had all of his blocks in the first half and also led the team with five steals. "We made sure we played hard defense against all our men, and they didn't get the ball where they wanted it."
Nichols keyed the decisive surge with seven straight points in less than a minute. He slammed home a two-hand dunk off a lob from Wright, hit a jumper from the top of the key, and swished a pullup 3-pointer from left wing to give Syracuse a 16-5 lead at 10:28.
"We just wanted to come out real, real strong and real aggressive," Nichols said. "We're trying to get better. That's what it's about."
Andy Rautins followed with a fast-break layup and a follow slam by Roberts upped the lead to 20-5.
St. Robert, whose two-handed dunk at 16:09 had pulled the Terriers to 5-4, finally scored again at 9:07 to halt the Syracuse rally.
"Offensively, we're still learning," Boeheim said. "We need to be patient and get ball movement. Our offensive focus is still not good. It's going to take a while to do what we're trying to do."
Syracuse Is My Favorite NCAA Basketball Team, Go Orange!!!
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