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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- Every time Syracuse tried to rally past
North Carolina State, Anthony Grundy slammed the door.
|  | | North Carolina State's Josh Powell, center, drops in a bucket between Syracuse defenders Preston Shumpert, left, and Craig Forth.
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Grundy scored 26 points, including nine in less than three
minutes late in the second half, as North Carolina State beat the
ninth-ranked Orangemen 82-68 on Saturday night.
For a team that has been giving five freshmen plenty of playing
time, it was an important victory. And it came in front of 20,150
screaming Syracuse fans, who saw their Orangemen lose for the first
time after nine consecutive victories.
"It's something that we have to be able to do as a young team,
and we handled it well," said Grundy, a senior who was 10-for-16
from the floor and also had five assists. "Everybody just stepped
up, and that's what we need."
It's only the second time the Wolfpack (7-2) has beaten a top-10
team on the road in Herb Sendek's five years as coach.
"What made me most pleased tonight was the look they had in
their eye," Sendek said. "I was really relaxed and confident on
the bench, just feeding off of them. Our team had a real sense of
purpose. As the game went on, the confidence continued to build."
Partly, probably, because Syracuse was playing its second
consecutive game without coach Jim Boeheim. Longtime assistant Bernie
Fine is directing the team while Boeheim recovers from surgery for
an enlarged prostate gland, and he took the blame for the defeat.
"I'm embarrassed, and I'll take the blame for this," Fine
said. "We kept rushing our offense. Coach Boeheim does not teach
us to play basketball like this. That's not a Syracuse team the way we
played."
The Wolfpack trailed only once, 38-37, after DeShaun Williams
hit a 3-pointer with 18:49 left for the Orangemen.
N.C. State rallied with a 9-0 run, and Grundy was the key. Josh
Powell, who finished with 14 points, began it with a layup. Grundy,
who had 22 in the period, then hit a 3-pointer, a jumper from the
top of the key, and a soft shot off the glass over hulking Jeremy
McNeil to put the Wolfpack ahead 46-38 with 16:31 remaining.
"That's one thing coach told us," Grundy said. "We had a lot
of easy opportunities and we made the best of them."
Every time the Wolfpack built a substantial lead, Syracuse
fought back. But after Williams hit a scoop shot to move the
Orangemen to down 57-52 at 7:23, Grundy went to work again.
He began his spurt with a fastbreak layup, then converted a dunk
and pullup jumper before ending it with a three-point play to give
the Wolfpack an insurmountable 70-59 lead with 3:43 to go.
"They just wanted it more than us," said Syracuse freshman
Hakim Warrick, who hit two shots in the final four minutes of the
first half to help rally the Orangemen back from an 11-point
deficit to trail 35-33 at the break. "They just went out there and
played hard, and we didn't."
Julius Hodge and Clifford Crawford each had 12 points for the
Wolfpack, whose defense frustrated Syracuse's top guns into several
bad shots when plays broke down.
Syracuse has relied on a trio of shooters all season in Preston
Shumpert, Williams, and Kueth Duany. Shumpert finished with 29
points and Williams had 20, but Duany, who was averaging nearly 15
points, did not score until he hit two foul shots with 11.9 seconds
left in the game.
Shumpert and Williams combined to take 36 of Syracuse's 57 shots
while Duany attempted only two shots from the floor.
"We lost because we were not patient on offense," Fine said.
"We settled down for the last four minutes of the first half and
cut the lead from 11 to two. We discussed it at halftime, and I tried
to make a point of the fact that you play together, you make them
defend you and you get good looks.
"We come out, do it a few times, get careless and we decide to
start doing one-on-one again." | 
N.C. State vs. Syracuse