CLEMSON, S.C. — Jim Boeheim expressed his displeasure to the officiating crew as he left the Littlejohn Coliseum floor for halftime. The red-faced Syracuse head coach had a few choice words and he was promptly assessed a technical foul.

That’s just how badly the first half went for the Orange. It even made mistakes when the clock read 0:00.

‘There was no foul called,’ Boeheim said. ‘I was talking to one guy and the other guy called a technical. He told me that I can’t stay there and talk to the other official at halftime. The guy I was talking to can give me a technical if he thinks I need it. I was just talking to him about the call.’

It was a frustrating first half for Syracuse, one that it would never recover from in its 74-70 loss to the Tigers Wednesday night. Clemson wore down the Orange with its aggressive defense and Syracuse never looked comfortable on offense.

Syracuse unceremoniously concluded its season in the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament to a Clemson team that not only outplayed the Orange, but also out-hustled and outsmarted SU for the first 32 minutes of the game, especially the first half.

And it found some luck, too.

‘They made some tough shots against our defense,’ Boeheim said. ‘Those things happen. Teams bang 3’s. When the shot clock is running out they throw it in from seven or eight feet behind the line. When those things happen, that’s part of the game.’

Clemson’s K.C. Rivers scored 21 of his career-high 29 points in the first half, mostly on 3-pointers and some of the out-of-this-world variety. He was 4-of-7 from deep in the first half, including a desperation attempt he threw up as the shot clock expired to give Clemson a seven-point lead and momentum late in the half.

‘K.C. really opened up the zone by shooting so well,’ Clemson head coach Oliver Purnell said. ‘He also started taking it to the basket. I thought he was outstanding the entire game.’

Clemson as a whole shot 58.3 percent from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes, building up a first-half storm that was too much for Syracuse, which shot only 37.5 percent from the field during the first half. Purnell said his team knew going into the game against the 2-3 zone defense they needed to make 3-pointers early to have a chance at winning.

The Orange never looked settled on the offensive end, thanks to a Clemson defense that flustered the SU 3-point shooters and forced Syracuse to press itself into making poor decisions.

‘I think we outplayed them in the second half,’ SU forward Demetris Nichols said. ‘It shows what we’re capable of doing, but we needed more time.’

A concern for Syracuse going into the game was Clemson’s pressure defense, which forced 24 turnovers Monday in its 21-point win against Mississippi. Without a true ball handler in the starting lineup for Syracuse, Clemson pressed right away in an attempt to trap Syracuse into throwing the ball away.

The press worked early on. Syracuse turned the ball over eight times in the first half and Boeheim was enraged at his team for not coming closer to the inbounds pass at backcourt in order to reduce the number of long passes SU was throwing.

Still, it didn’t concern Boeheim, or Nichols.

‘Once we had half court, we had any shot we wanted,’ Nichols said.

‘I thought we handled the press pretty well,’ Boeheim said. ‘We had some bad, unforced turnovers in the half court, but we scored quite a few points against their press. It was never a concern for me.’

It was Purnell’s goal to use the pressure defense to make plays go Clemson’s way. It worked on the defensive end, plus it got the Tigers going on offense with forced turnovers. Clemson scored 12 points off eight SU first-half giveaways.

‘That’s our style of play,’ Purnell said. ‘We were going to go with what brought us here. We felt like we could turn them over and speed them up. I thought it was going to be a game of our defensive style against their defensive style.’

Published on March 21, 2007 at 12:00 pm