Tyrone Albright ’04, left, and Carmelo Anthony ’06 celebrate in New Orleans. Photo by Stephen D. Cannerelli, The Post-Standard

George Bernard Shaw once lamented that youth was wasted on the young. The late Irish dramatist and social commentator might have recanted his famous quote had he observed the 2002-03 Syracuse University basketball team in action. For nearly five months, these young Orangemen failed to act their age—and it was a joyous thing to behold. They showed us that sometimes talent trumps experience, especially when that talent is combined with togetherness.

Led by precocious freshmen Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara, the ’Cuse was elevated to heights never visited before—a 30-5 record, an undefeated season in the Carrier Dome (17-0), and the school’s first NCAA basketball championship. In the process, they galvanized a region slammed hard by a sluggish economy and a relentless winter that was severe even by upstate New York’s standards.

These “kids” also rewarded Coach Jim Boeheim ’66, G’73, who has been true to his school for nearly four decades, with the only thing missing from his Hall-of-Fame-caliber coaching resume. Never again will Boeheim have to answer why he can’t win the big one.

SU Stats & Facts 1.5 – SECONDS left on the clock when Hakim Warrick blocked a 3-point attempt by Michael Lee of Kansas in the NCAA championship game 2 – NCAA championship games SU has played in the Louisiana Superdome 3 – TIMES Coach Jim Boeheim has led SU to the Final Four 3 – INDIVIDUAL Big East awards claimed by SU players this season: Carmelo Anthony, Rookie of the Year; Hakim Warrick, Most Improved Player; and Kueth Duany, Sportsmanship Award 4 – SU players selected as Big East Rookie of the Year: Carmelo Anthony (2002-03), Lawrence Moten (1991-92), Derrick Coleman (1986-87), and Dwayne “Pearl” Washington (1983-84) 4 – BIG 12 conference teams that SU defeated in the 2003 NCAA tournament (Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State) 5 – NCAA tournament games in which four SU players scored in double figures 6 – THREE-POINT shots made by Gerry McNamara in the first half of the Kansas game, a Syracuse NCAA tournament record 7 – FORMER Boeheim assistants who are head coaches: Rick Pitino, Louisville; Tim O’Toole, Fairfield; Louis Orr, Seton Hall; Ralph Willard, Holy Cross; Tim Welsh, Providence; Scott Hicks, Loyola (Maryland); and Wayne Morgan, Iowa State 7 – UNDERCLASSMEN among SU’s 9 scholarship players

By defeating Kansas 81-78 in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on April 7, this wise-beyond-its-basketball-years team accomplished one other thing: It exorcised the ghost of Keith Smart, the former Indiana University star whose painful baseline shot with 4 seconds remaining in this very same building 16 years ago prevented Syracuse from laying claim to the title.

The signature play in SU’s rich basketball history no longer will be that nightmarish Smart shot, re-run ad nauseam each time the tournament rolls around. Instead, it will be that amazing, championship-preserving block by Hakim Warrick. The 6-foot-9 sophomore forward from Philadelphia came from out of nowhere to swat away a 3-point attempt by Michael Lee of Kansas with 1.5 seconds remaining in the season finale. Warrick’s hustling, heads-up play epitomized a season in which the Orangemen became the feel-good story of college basketball and the pride of SU alumni worldwide. “The excitement this team has brought, the attitude of never giving up, and continuing to play hard is a life lesson for every kid who lives in this area, and for the adults, too,” says Boeheim, whose Orangemen erased second-half deficits 15 times en route to victories. “This team showed that you can be behind, you can be struggling, you can do some silly things sometimes. But you can still overcome all that. If you keep playing and keep working together all the time, anything’s possible.”

The so-called college basketball experts had low expectations for Syracuse heading into the season. Few questioned that this team would be more talented than the 2001-02 Orangemen, who lost 8 of their final 12 regular-season games and wound up in the National Invitational Tournament. Anthony, whose incandescent smile reminds many of basketball legend Magic Johnson, was everybody’s pre-season choice to become the top rookie in college basketball. McNamara had been recruited by the likes of three-time national champion Duke. And Billy Edelin had been the point guard for the nation’s top-ranked high school team while playing for Oak Hill Academy in Virginia.

Courtesy of SU Athletics

But none of the pundits believed a team that started two freshmen and two sophomores could make the quantum leap from missing the NCAAs one year to winning it all the next. “I guess we wound up defying the conventional wisdom that says you can’t win without experience,” says captain Kueth Duany, the only senior scholarship player on the team and the 2002-03 recipient of the Big East’s Sportsmanship Award. Duany, known to his teammates as “Gramps,” saw something special in this group the first day of practice at Manley Field House in mid-October. “I think Melo [Anthony] and G-Mac [McNamara] and Billy [Edelin] were in so many pressure games in high school and in AAU leagues that this pressure didn’t faze them,” Duany says. “They arrived here with a big-game mentality. I have to keep reminding myself that these guys are only freshmen and sophomores. There are times when they play like seniors, and sometimes they play like grad students.”

It’s interesting to note that they ended their first practice of the season by huddling up and chanting in unison: “Final Four.” Talk about a good omen.

Though they lost their season opener to Memphis at Madison Square Garden on November 14, notice was served as Anthony scored 27 points, a school record for freshmen, and McNamara added 14. The Orangemen then reeled off 11 consecutive victories, including a 76-69 win over Missouri, then ranked 11th in the nation.

Courtesy of SU Athletics Captain Kueth Duany ’02 looks for an opening against Kansas. At left, he takes a moment to relax and enjoy the NCAA championship trophy.

The ’Cuse continued to open eyes by storming back from double-digit deficits to defeat second-ranked Pittsburgh and ninth-ranked Notre Dame in the Carrier Dome in February. But it wasn’t until the Orangemen came away with victories at three of the toughest venues in college basketball—Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Georgetown—that outsiders began to take them seriously. “I think those wins on the road convinced people that this team might just be capable of doing something extraordinary,” Boeheim says. “Maybe these kids really were too young to realize that you aren’t supposed to win three games in places like that or to come back from so many big deficits. There probably were five or six games this season we had no right winning because we had dug ourselves too big a hole. But somehow, some way, they found a way to come back.’’ No wonder many began referring to them as Cardiac ’Cuse.

No player was more ahead of his time than Anthony, the 6-foot-8 forward who averaged 22.2 points and 10 rebounds per game while earning National Freshman of the Year honors and the Most Outstanding Player Award at the Final Four. On several occasions, Boeheim said Anthony was “unguardable.” This clearly was the case in the final, when Anthony had 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 7 assists, despite playing more than half the game with a back so severely strained he couldn’t bend over to tie his shoes. “You spend a lifetime dreaming of playing on a stage like this,” Anthony says. “There was no way I was coming out of that game until that final buzzer sounded.”