CLEMSON, S.C. — Eight days ago this finish seemed highly improbable. Jim Boeheim was sports talk show jockeying and the Syracuse players were crying foul over Syracuse’s exclusion from the NCAA Tournament.

Amazing how much changed in eight days.

Instead of sub-6,000 crowds at the Carrier Dome for the National Invitational Tournament, 16,832 came out to show their appreciation for the dissed Orange (and disdain for the NCAA selection committee). Then an NIT-record 26,752 watched Syracuse defeat San Diego State.

‘We were tremendously disappointed last week,’ Boeheim said. ‘When that happens, you have to adjust. I think the players made a tremendous adjustment; they probably made a better adjustment than I did. I’m probably a lot less well-adjusted than they are.’

Boeheim’s last comment is especially interesting, considering he’s been constantly discussing the Tournament snub for the past two weeks. Admittedly, he said he hadn’t completely gotten over it.

‘You have to take life as it comes,’ Boeheim said.

Senior forward Demetris Nichols wouldn’t talk much about his final contest at Syracuse. He didn’t think it would end like this – not just because Syracuse was in the NIT.

‘I didn’t think it would end with a loss,’ Nichols said.

Nichols said he pulled his teammates aside near the end of the game, before Clemson clinched it at the end and told them to ‘give it all they had here.’

‘I said ‘We can’t look back now,” Nichols said.

Boeheim is most proud of what his players accomplished in the NIT, which typically is a tournament where big-name programs falter at the beginning, burdened by the disappointment of not making the NCAA Tournament.

‘We’ve done everything we could ask this team to do in the last eight days,’ Boeheim said. ‘I’m very proud of the way they’ve played under the circumstances of the way we were down.’

Published on March 21, 2007 at 12:00 pm