No one attempted to alleviate Syracuse’s worst home loss in more than a decade. Not Jim Boeheim. Not his players.

‘The worst loss I’ve been a part of,’ junior point guard Scoop Jardine said.

It was a loss that stunned the Carrier Dome crowd into dazed silence. That made Boeheim question the effort of his players. That caused both the SU head coach and his players to admit to the shaken confidence that has come with a three-game losing streak.

And it all came as the worst-shooting team in the Big East — Seton Hall — roared into the Dome and put up its best 3-point shooting performance of the season against Syracuse’s once-feared 2-3 zone defense.

The Pirates made their first seven shots — and first three 3-pointers — en route to shredding No. 9 SU’s zone early and taking a commanding lead into the half. Seton Hall (9-12, 3-6 Big East) didn’t slow down, pulling away in the second half for a 90-68 victory over the Orange (18-3, 5-3) in front of 21,950 inside the Dome on Tuesday.

‘To be honest, I’m a little disappointed in some of the effort tonight,’ Boeheim said. ‘We’ll see what we can do about that.’

The 22-point loss is Syracuse’s worst home loss since Feb. 7, 1998, when the same Seton Hall program beat the Orangemen 85-61 inside the Dome. And this season, after the second-best start in program history, Syracuse has now lost three consecutive Big East games. In all three of those losses, SU’s zone has been exposed and decimated.

‘Our defense is bad,’ SU shooting guard Brandon Triche said. ‘I’m playing defense bad.’

Jeremy Hazell was the immediate difference-maker in Tuesday’s second meeting between the Orange and the Pirates. Hazell didn’t play the last time his Seton Hall squad squared off against Syracuse on Jan. 8, a game in which the Pirates started 0-of-17 from 3-point range.

This time, Hazell was in the starting lineup and changed his team’s fortunes right from the opening tip. Fifteen seconds in, he got the ball beyond the 3-point line. Seventeen seconds in, there was no chance for another 0-of-17.

‘Any time someone gets hot, you need to make an adjustment,’ sophomore forward James Southerland said. ‘Contain him a little more. We didn’t adjust.’

The Orange’s failure to adjust let Hazell and a slew of other Pirates get hot early. On Seton Hall’s next possession — after Hazell’s opening 3-pointer — forward Fuquan Edwin hit a long jump shot from the right corner. Seton Hall made its next four shots, and then Jeff Robinson capped off the opening rally with a 3-pointer near the exact same spot where Hazell started it.

Five minutes in, SU had given up a whopping 19 points. And though SU’s offense scored 11 points in that same span, it couldn’t keep up. And it was Hazell leading the charge with 14 first-half points.

‘We haven’t had Jeremy Hazell for two and a half months,’ Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard said. ‘When he’s out there, everybody looks like a better shooter. Him being out there and playing against the zone was pretty nice.’

At halftime, Seton Hall had scored 43 on the Orange defense — the second consecutive game an opponent has scored 40-plus first-half points against Syracuse. And when the half was over, Seton Hall’s other numbers — along with the 43 points — told the story: 55.2 percent shooting and 63.6 percent 3-point shooting. And the Orange found itself trailing 43-30 at the break.

Syracuse never threatened, failing to get any closer the rest of the way.

‘Same thing has happened these last three games,’ Triche said. ‘They had a game plan — they followed it. We had a game plan — we didn’t follow it. The last three games, we’re just losing focus.’

The second half only pushed the Orange further back. There was never a comeback attempt, like against Pittsburgh and Villanova. Seton Hall scored the first seven points of the half and quickly built a 20-point lead.

The Pirates, who lost at home Saturday to Rutgers, picked up its first win over a ranked team this season. A team that shoots 29 percent from 3-point range on the season made 10-of-17 tries Tuesday.

At the end of his postgame press conference, Boeheim called into question the effort of his players. And in the Syracuse locker room, his players wouldn’t dispute that fact, either.

‘There’s really nothing you can do but move forward,’ Jardine said. ‘But it’s unacceptable to play that way.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on January 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm