EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Two shots saved Preston Shumpert last night. And maybe the Orangemen, too.

That’s all it took. Two measly buckets after myriad attempts landed everywhere but in the basket.

With Kueth Duany heading to the locker room with a possible broken nose, Shumpert thought to himself, ‘It’s time to take over.’ Five possessions later, he did, nailing a three-pointer from the left corner, which he followed with a running jump shot inside the paint. The shots extended SU’s lead to 68-59.

‘That’s all that matters,’ backup center Jeremy McNeil said. ‘Preston does what it takes to win, that’s all that matters. I don’t care if he misses all of them and only makes one. It’s the one shot, the big shot that matters.

‘If he’d have been hitting, we’d have won by 20. He’s not hitting, and we only won by two. We needed those shots.’

Those shots fell on a night when little else came close for the forward head coach Jim Boeheim calls one of SU’s best shooters — ever. Shumpert was 0 for 6 in the first half, and he finished 5 of 22 and 1 of 9 from three-point range. That’s 17 missed shots, compared with 18 misses total for the rest of the team.

‘It was just off, man,’ Shumpert said. ‘One of those nights.’

Despite the shooting woes, Boeheim encouraged Shumpert to keep shooting. The coach’s confidence eased Shumpert’s concern when shot after shot rattled off the back of the rim.

‘He didn’t care,’ Shumpert said. ‘And when you get that from him, you get the confidence to just keep shooting. You have to stay positive.’

‘You’ve just got to keep firing,’ Duany said. ‘You’ve got to find some other guys, too, especially if they’re double-teaming, you’ve got to keep attacking the defensive end, find someone open for a three.’

Shumpert did that, too, with a team-high four assists. He also made the most of any inside opportunities, tossing in two layups he described as ‘junk buckets’ and making one spinning move for an ‘and one.’ Shumpert also hit 6 of 8 free throws and finished with perhaps the quietest 17 points ever in the Continental Airlines Arena.

The senior forward attributed his late-game heroics to increased conditioning with Duany. The two have been doing extra running and more workouts with SU strength and conditioning coach Corey Parker.

The workouts especially gave him the arms necessary to complete two long-range passes. One found DeShaun Williams for a layup in the first half, the second gave Syracuse its last basket when James Thues settled underneath it and layed it in.

Shumpert thinks it’s the quarterback in him emerging. Williams agreed.

‘Oh yeah, I knew it was coming,’ Williams said.

‘Of course,’ Shumpert said, chiming in from a nearby chair.

‘That’s my man right there,’ Williams continued. ‘He’s the man.’

‘Respect that arm,’ Shumpert said.

After Thursday, though, respect that game too. Because even when it can’t get any uglier, Shumpert managed to pull through.

‘He stepped up,’ SU assistant Troy Weaver said. ‘That’s what an all-league player is supposed to do, especially when Kueth went down. We needed somebody else to step up.”

The only concern for Syracuse, though, is Shumpert’s ever-intriguing right eye. Late in the second half, it was poked by Seton Hall center Greg Morton. Shumpert massaged the eye and grimaced but afterward said it wasn’t bothering him. Keep in mind, he only ditched the eye goggles during the middle of the Notre Dame game last weekend.

‘It’s fine,’ he said, laughing. ‘The win’s all that matters today.’

Published on February 21, 2002 at 12:00 pm