One For the Ages

If you are anything more than merely a casual fan of college basketball, you will be sick of reading or hearing the name Gerry McNamara after the next week. You will be so bored, and possibly annoyed, by the amount of praise and acclaim heaped on McNamara that you will start to think that he cannot possibly live up to the hype that will soon surround his name. You might even start to think that he is overrated.

As sure as you might think that McNamara is overrated, try not to say it aloud. But if you cannot keep yourself from muttering the dreaded "o" word, please, whatever you do, do not say it loud enough for McNamara to hear you. Because if he does hear you, your beloved alma mater might be the next school to fall victim to the once-again mighty Syracuse Orange and their fearless senior leader.

Having led the Orange to a victory over Pittsburgh and back-to-back Big East championship trophies, McNamara has just put the exclamation point on one of the most incredible week-long runs in college basketball history. There might be lot of players who put up better stats over a four-game stretch, but, in the hallowed history of the college hardwood, it is not "how much," but merely "how."

Until this past week, Randolph Childress' performance for Wake Forest in the 1995 ACC championship was the barometer for greatness in a conference tournament. It was not just the points Childress amassed, but it was how he did it. Childress pulled up for three-pointers when leading a three-on-one break or took fade-away 22-footers off the dribble early in the shot clock.

Most famously, of course, was Childress crossing over a defender so badly that the defender fell to the ground, which was followed by Childress staring at the defender, then smiling and waving his hand at the defender to get up and guard him. Childress then casually knocked down a step-back jumper. If you did not see the play, then words cannot justify how spectacular it was. If you did see Childress' crossover, however, you will never forget it.

This writer never thought he would be excited by a player as much as Randolph Childress excited me for one week in that ACC tournament. Then I watched Gerry McNamara this week at the Garden. Syracuse might proceed to bomb in the Big Dance (as they did last year against Vermont) and McNamara's career might not amount to much at the next level. But, for one week in March, nobody did anything better than Gerry McNamara played basketball.

As stated earlier, forget the statistics. McNamara did not ring up a ton of points and his shooting percentage was not off the charts. But what those statistics fail to tell you is that he was carrying the offensive load for a team that did not have either a viable second scoring option on offense or another ball handler comfortable enough running the show to allow McNamara to play his more natural position of shooting guard.

McNamara, as has been the case all season, was forced to play out of position and counted on to both run the offense and be the primary scorer. And he had to do it while both his school and hometown newspapers, respectively, were citing unnamed Big East sources who claimed he was the most overrated player in the Big East.

So, in perhaps the greatest unspoken retort to "unnamed sources" in history, McNamara went about ensuring that Syracuse would repeat as Big East champions. First, it was a running three-pointer at the buzzer against Cincinnati. Then, it was a long three to force overtime and an eventual upset of the number-one ranked Connecticut Huskies. Then, for a change of pace, he hit a long three to cut the lead to one in the waning seconds of the Georgetown game, and proceeded to win the game with a beautiful pass in transition.

Gerry McNamara secured his place in Big East tournament by leading the Orange to a fourth straight upset in the final game against Pittsburgh. He joins the likes of Patrick Ewing, Ray Allen, Terry Dehere, and John Wallace as players who have turned the Big East tournament into their own personal Big Apple Showcase.

There have been players who have scored more and players who have shot better, but no player has ever had such a direct impact on his team's results as Gerry McNamara had this week in leading the Syracuse orange to the Big East tournament. As long as the Big East continues to assemble in New York City to crown their champion, basketball fans will remember, with a smile, how great McNamara played for that one week in 2006. Not bad for a guy who is less than a week removed from being overrated.

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