PHILADELPHIA — The play was intended for C.J. Fair, who was supposed to curl off a Willie Deane screen and receive the ball. Instead, it ended with Deane heaving a 3-pointer off the bottom of the backboard at the end of the shot clock, resulting in a violation and one last chance for the Temple alumni to tie or win the game.

There were 29.2 seconds left and Boeheim’s Army head coach Ryan Blackwell drew the play up during a timeout, but it didn’t pan out.

Only the shot clock on the basket opposite Boeheim’s Army’s was on and it read 17 seconds when Blackwell heard Hakim Warrick tell Deane to hold the ball and not shoot. Then it was at nine and Deane still stood beyond the 3-point arc. Not until it got to one second did he realize he had to toss up a prayer with just over 10 seconds left in the game.

“There was some confusion,” Blackwell said. “… because Hakim, at one point, the shot clock was off when he saw it.”

“He didn’t realize, obviously that he had 17, or nine seconds, left to make a play,” Brandon Triche said of Deane.

The North Broad Street Bullies gave the ball to Khalif Wyatt, who torched Syracuse for 33 points in 2012 when Temple gave the Orange its first loss of the season at Madison Square Garden. He was 0-for-10 from 3-point range in the game so far and had one last chance to salvage an otherwise dreadful afternoon.

Blackwell even told his team to play man when they had been playing zone the entire game, stifling the player who still gives Fair and Triche sour memories from their playing days.

That suggestion didn’t go over too well.

“Ryan was thinking that we should go man,” Triche said, “and C.J. was like, ‘We all know zone so why would we go man?’”

So Boeheim’s Army played an extended 2-3 on the last possession, willing to allow a two-pointer, even tempting Wyatt to make one.

“Our mindset was we were ready to go into overtime,” Fair said.

But this time, Wyatt couldn’t produce any heroics and his shot careened off the back iron before Triche skied for the most important of his four rebounds and got fouled with 1.1 seconds left.

He flung the ball in the air and strutted down to the opposite foul line before coolly hitting both foul shots to seal the game and render one last prayer from North Broad Street meaningless. Boeheim’s Army had escaped with an 86-82 win.

“Just go get it,” Triche said of the board. “Obviously, playing at Syracuse, the most important thing for guards is to always come back in.”

The win moves the group of mainly Orange alumni one step closer, and four wins away, from the $2 million prize. The players at the postgame podium – Fair, Triche and Darryl Watkins, were asked if they think about the cash during the game.

Fair said no, Watkins admitted he does and Triche simply acknowledged the significance of the prize money if the team happens to win it.

It may not be top of mind in the heat of the moment, but after Boeheim’s Army filled the final spot in the tournament’s Super 16, it’s something that’s becoming more realistic.

Published on July 17, 2016 at 8:29 pm

Contact Matt: mcschnei@syr.edu | @matt_schneidman