PROVIDENCE, R.I. Blow for blow, Providence hung with the No. 1 team in the country. Shot for shot, the underdog Friars matched Syracuse unlike any other opponent so far this season.

They shot 48.9 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from 3-point range. It was a bedeviling performance that the likes of Florida, Virginia Tech and certainly Seton Hall didn’t come close to matching.

‘We’ve stopped everybody pretty much this year, and we couldn’t stop them,’ Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘We just outscored them.’

The Orange (16-0, 3-0 Big East) shot an unfathomable 73.1 percent in the second half to pull away from the Friars for an 87-73 win in front of 12,252 in the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. Arguably SU’s worst defensive performance of the season was left in the dust by a freakishly efficient offense that produced another double-digit victory. Eventually, Providence (11-5, 0-3) simply couldn’t keep up with the torridity of Syracuse and fell short in its upset bid.

The first half of Wednesday’s game was a see-saw battle that ended with the Orange taking a two-point lead into the break. Seven ties and nine lead changes energized the near-sellout crowd as both Providence and Syracuse lit up the scoreboard early.

Back and forth the two teams went, trading momentum-stealing baskets with big-time answers.

Gerard Coleman sliced to the basket off an inbounds pass to give the Friars a 16-11 lead with the shot clock winding down. But 14 seconds later, C.J. Fair responded with a bucket off a feed from Dion Waiters.

A minute later, Waiters was fouled shooting a 3 from the left wing. He drilled it, hit the free throw and gave SU a 17-16 lead.

Match that.

With less than two minutes left in the half, Friars guard Vincent Council was fouled on a 3 from the wing. He drilled it, hit the free throw and gave PC a 34-33 lead.

No problem.

‘We knew they were going to throw a punch, so we just had to be ready to throw punches back,’ Waiters said. ‘And that’s what they did and that’s what we did. They came down and made a shot, we came down and made a shot. It was like whoever missed first…’

…Would lose the game. And that was Providence.

While Syracuse began the second half 5-of-6 from the field, Providence went 1-of-4. A 36-34 SU lead at the break bulged to 11 by the 16:25 mark of the second half.

And by the 15:02 mark, the lead was suddenly 14 thanks to Brandon Triche. The Syracuse guard hit three consecutive 3s for a personal 9-0 run that gave his team the necessary cushion to pull out a victory.

‘Best shooting night we’ve had all year,’ Boeheim said. ‘If it hadn’t happened that way, the game could have very easily gone the other way.’

SU finished the game 10-of-17 from 3-point range to verify its head coach’s statement.

Still, though, the Friars refused to quit. Ed Cooley’s squad trimmed the lead to seven after a 3 by forward LaDontae Henton with 9:36 remaining. It brought the Providence head coach up off the bench pumping his fist and imploring the crowd to rise to its feet.

But there was the white-hot Syracuse offense ready to bail out its subpar defense. Triche took an outlet pass from James Southerland and went right to the rim for a layup off a missed free throw by Henton. Then Southerland dialed up a dagger from 3-point range with the shot clock winding down on the very next possession.

From a seven-point lead to a 12-point cushion just like that.

‘When our defense isn’t going, someone is going to spark on offense,’ Triche said. ‘That’s going to enable us to get a lead, and even if the other team is scoring and we can’t really stop them like Providence was scoring, and we couldn’t stop them. We just outscored them this game.’

So following Coleman’s aggressive layup through the chest of Fab Melo that brought the Friars within six with 5:42 to play, it’s fitting another offensive burst sealed the win for the Orange.

Waiters scored five straight points two on a brilliant layup high off the glass in traffic and three more on a triple from the right corner allowing him to trot back down court with his tongue hanging out and a grin stretched across his face.

With offense like this, Syracuse simply couldn’t lose.

‘Their whole team, I thought, played great,’ Boeheim said of the Friars. ‘They did everything right, everything they need to do to win the game. We just made shots.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on January 4, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13