NEW YORK – If Syracuse was looking for any extra motivation in its 74-69 overtime victory over West Virginia Friday night, Mountaineer forward Da’Sean Butler provided more than enough.

The Orange was making final preparations for its game against Connecticut Thursday before taking the court for warmups. The Mountaineers were parading down the adjacent hallway, celebrating their upset victory over Pittsburgh that ended a few moments earlier.

That’s when Butler decided to send a message.

‘When he’s coming into the locker room, he kinda looked at us, started clapping and getting loud, ‘Man, I can’t wait to play UConn tomorrow,” point guard Jonny Flynn said. West Virginia would have played the Huskies next, had UConn beaten the Orange Thursday. ‘He’s looking at us like that. We’re like, ‘Wow, where did that come from?’

‘That was definitely mentioned today in the pregame, that these guys, they didn’t think we had a chance of winning that game.’

With that gesture, Butler supplied Syracuse with all the bulletin material it needed. The Orange knocked off Connecticut in a six-overtime thriller, ensuring a matchup with West Virginia in the Big East tournament semifinals. All through both games, Butler’s remark weighed heavy on the SU players’ minds.

It is a tactic used so often in sports it has become a cliche: Feel like nobody else believes in your team and use it as motivation to prove everyone wrong. So perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise Syracuse has suddenly adopted it as its own.

Now riding a six-game winning streak, the Orange is taking an ‘us against the world’ mentality first into the Big East tournament finals Saturday against Louisville, and ultimately into the NCAA Tournament.

And Butler may have been the tipping point.

‘We just used that to really win,’ SU forward Rick Jackson said. ‘We knew we were going to play them, and we refused to let them beat us because they thought we were going to lose. Now, UConn and West Virginia can make up a date or whatever and then they can play each other if they wanted to.’

Butler was one of the top performers for the Mountaineers Friday, scoring 21 points and six rebounds. But he only tallied two points in the game’s final nine minutes, when West Virginia was trying to win in overtime after coming back from as much as nine points down in the second half. Three Syracuse players said nobody confronted Butler about his comments. ‘We have to stay humble,’ forward Paul Harris said.

After playing six overtimes against Connecticut, the big question for Syracuse was how it would respond with just 20 hours of rest against West Virginia, another NCAA Tournament-bound team. Though it wasn’t easy, the Orange passed the test by outscoring the Mountaineers, 11-6, in the eighth overtime period in its last four games.

In the locker room afterward, there was a lot of talk about respect. Flynn couldn’t understand why Butler didn’t respect Syracuse, even though it beat the Mountaineers by 13 earlier in the season. When a reporter suggested SU was considered the underdog because of the short turnaround between its last two games, Flynn said he thought the Orange would have been ‘disrespected’ even if it hadn’t played six overtimes against Connecticut the night before.

Nevertheless, the players said they are trying to take the high road.

‘We don’t pay too much attention to that,’ SU guard Eric Devendorf said. ‘We know the type of team we are. We have some of the best talent in the country on this team. We can match-up with anybody in the country.’

The way Syracuse is playing right now, that might be true. The Orange has a major test Saturday night against No. 5 Louisville, which won the regular season Big East title and beat SU by 10 at the Carrier Dome in January. Perhaps a win over the Cardinals, the players say, will convince everyone they are a legitimate contender.

Even though Syracuse took care of West Virginia Friday, it doesn’t mean Butler’s comments will now be forgotten.

‘It was great motivation. It’s always good to hear people doubting you, counting you out,’ Jackson said. ‘We just used that as motivation. Guys thought about it today, yesterday, during the game. You just think about things like that.’

jediamon@syr.edu

Published on March 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm