Michael Gbinije and Jim Boeheim froze in the exact same position on opposite sides of the court — Gbinije lying outside the right block on one end of the court, Boeheim standing by the bench on the other.

Hands on heads, eyes closed in amazement.

The previously silenced student section erupted.

“Bullsh*t, bullsh*t, bullsh*t.”

Gbinije was called for a block. With 6:22 left and Syracuse already trailing St. Francis (N.Y.) by three, nothing could go right for SU at that moment. C.J. Fair was 2-for-12. Rakeem Christmas looked lost in the paint. The Terriers were shooting about 45 percent and matching the Orange on the glass.

With four minutes left, the St. Francis lead was four. With three, it was three.

“We had to make plays. We had to make stops,” Boeheim said.

And the Orange did. Thirty-nine minutes of heart-wrenching, November-upset scare later, St. Francis finally unraveled. Syracuse forced two turnovers in the final 1:04 as Jerami Grant carried the No. 9 Orange (4-0) to a 56-50 win down the stretch, and out of the Carrier Dome on Monday having narrowly avoided arguably its most embarrassing loss in five years.

The Terriers (2-2) led or tied SU from the 17:16 mark in the second half all the way until Grant found Gbinije for a breakaway layup with 59 seconds left.

“They punched us in the mouth,” Gbinije said. “And sometimes when you get punched in the mouth, you’ve got to make sure your teeth are straight and your tongue is in there. After that you’ve got to just come back out and deliver another punch. And that’s what we did.”

But for Syracuse, if a punch from a middle-of-the-pack Northeast Conference opponent results in a near knockout, it’ll be on the ropes quickly come Atlantic Coast Conference play.

The upset scare served as a wake-up call for the Orange players.

“It allowed us to see anyone can win, anybody can beat us if we come out lackadaisical,” Grant said.

Three times Syracuse pushed its lead as wide as eight in the first half, and three times St. Francis battled back.

Trailing just 30-26 at halftime, the St. Francis players bounced raucously as they exited the locker room tunnel.

“ACC” chants flooded out into the Dome as the Terriers jogged out and immediately reeled off a 9-2 run to take their first lead of the game.

The Terriers weren’t going down easy — and it wasn’t going to be Fair that beat them.

When the Orange turned to its ACC preseason Player of the Year midway through the second stanza, St. Francis turned to Lowell Ulmer. He stuck with Fair on a spin in one possession. Tied him up on the next. Then drew a charge with 12:03 left.

“It’s always frustrating when you expect to play a certain way and you don’t,” Fair said.

After Ben Mockford swished a 3-pointer to push St. Francis’ lead to 43-40 with 7:12 to play, he turned toward the SU student section and pounded his chest.

About a minute later, Gbinije was called for the block on Wayne Martin and 1:33 after that, Mockford hit again from the right corner.

The minutes dragged on as Baye Moussa Keita fumbled an offensive rebound and Trevor Cooney bricked a 3. Tyler Ennis and Cooney missed jumpers. Then Keita fouled out with 2:43 to play.

Forward Jalen Cannon said the Terriers felt confident in that environment “for some point of time.”

“But then ‘boom,’ it just hit us,” Cannon said, “and we didn’t know what to do.”

Martin side-rimmed two free throws with 2:43 to play that would have given St. Francis a five-point lead, and Fair ripped the rebound away from Cannon.

Cannon bobbled a pass out of bounds on the Terriers’ next possession, and Grant cleaned up a Fair air ball layup to tie the game at 50.

Thirty seconds later, Grant jumped into Martin’s passing lane and lofted a pass ahead to Gbinije. An early Christmas gift, Gbinije called it. One that gave Syracuse its first lead in 16:18.

After Anthony White threw a pass off a teammate’s leg, Gbinije scooped the loose ball to Grant and SU hit its last four free throws to close the game.

A Christmas block with 15 seconds left sent the crowd into an uproar. The Syracuse fans could cheer for that moment, but plenty of worrying lies ahead.

“I think we can learn some things from this that will help us going forward,” Boeheim said, “but we’ve certainly got a lot of work to do and that’s not a surprise.”

Published on November 19, 2013 at 3:16 am

Contact Stephen: sebail01@syr.edu | @Stephen_Bailey1