Syracuse knows what it’s up against in Duke

Monday, March 16, 1998 | 9:10 a.m.

In the case of the Orangemen, it was purely a matter of self-interest. They preferred not to play the South Regional's top seed next Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla.

But that's exactly who they'll get. By beating fourth-seeded New Mexico 56-46 on Sunday, the Orangemen (26-9) set themselves up for a game against one of the deepest teams in the NCAA tournament.

"You don't get to be No. 1 if you have weaknesses. They don't have any," coach Jim Boeheim said. "This is a team that beats good teams by 30 or 40."

Duke (31-3) wasn't nearly that good as it beat eighth-seeded Oklahoma State 79-73 in the earlier game. While Syracuse coaches scouting the game at courtside openly rooted for the Cowboys to pull off the upset, Duke built a double-digit lead and held on.

"I thought Oklahoma State played unbelievably well and couldn't get there," said Boeheim, who watched most of the game. "They're just a real good basketball team. They've got a lot of answers."

The Blue Devils have a lot of good players, and that's what got them back to the round of 16 for the first time in four years. Their depth wore down Oklahoma State (22-7), which faded in the final minutes after it closed within a basket.

"We had offensive contributions from a lot of people today," said Roshown McLeod, who scored 22 points and had 10 rebounds. "We missed some easy ones today, but we'll hit those shots next time."

A mark of how good Duke is: The Blue Devils struggled, but still wound up shooting 54 percent and outrebounding Oklahoma State 33-27.

Duke also overcame a hostile crowd, which booed the Blue Devils during their practice and their two games. Coach Mike Krzyzewski's suggestion earlier in the week that his team deserved to go somewhere else didn't sit too well with the local folks.

On Sunday, point guard Steve Wojciechowski was booed every time he touched the ball after getting into a shoving match with Oklahoma State point guard Doug Gottlieb as they went for a loose ball.

"I don't know why they are booing me, but I don't really care," Wojciechowski said. "If they are booing me, then it means they are not cheering for their team. I look at that as a positive."

Oklahoma State had a chance after cutting an 11-point lead to 67-64 with 3:48 left on Adrian Peterson's 3-pointer. But Peterson, the Cowboys' best offensive player, missed his last four shots and Duke hit 7-of-8 free throws in the final 40 seconds to hold on.

The Cowboys blamed it on fatigue. Three players were on the floor for more than 37 minutes; none of Duke's players topped 35 minutes.

"They're deep," coach Eddie Sutton said. "A lot of times when you have a great club, they'll still maybe play seven or eight guys. They can go much deeper than that and it doesn't seem to affect their play. What you can't read in the scorebook is the exhaustion that presents to the other team."

"We can go back to Stillwater proud," guard Chad Alexander said. "We were in the game with 5:00 left. We could have won the game."

Syracuse, the fifth seed, got by with poor shooting (34 percent) because fourth-seeded New Mexico was even worse (25.5 percent). The Lobos were only 6-of-25 on 3-point attempts against Syracuse's 2-3 zone defense.

New Mexico missed 3-point specialist Royce Olney, who tore knee ligaments late in the season, leaving the Lobos shorthanded and less effective from the perimeter.

"I think it's a case of we're not the same team - especially against a zone - that we were," coach Dave Bliss said. "We did things to get good shots and we just missed good shots."

"We just didn't shoot the ball well," forward Clayton Shields said. "We got open looks, but we weren't able to knock 'em down. When we don't do that, that's normally when we have tough losses."

Syracuse played two mundane games in Lexington. Asked which areas his team needs to improve on in order to have a shot at toppling Duke, Boeheim responded, "Everything."

"I don't think we played well here," Boeheim said. "In the first game we didn't rebound or handle the ball well. Today we did that, but we didn't shoot well."

The Orangemen have one main reason to be encouraged: Oklahoma State showed that a team can stay with Duke if it's on top of its game.

"They're beatable," guard Jason Hart said. "They lost three games this year. Anyone's beatable."