After Dion Waiters threw down a savage dunk as the horn sounded, a dunk that left the basket shaking and, though the shot was no good, drove a stake in the heart of Connecticut fans, he fixed a laser stare on the Garden crowd and raised both arms, the index finger on each hand extended upward.
Syracuse fans wouldn’t have blamed him if he had chosen to raise his middle fingers.
This is has been the longest week in the longest season in recent Syracuse basketball history.
It began with the Orange bolting the Big East to join the Atlantic Coast Conference. Then, longtime assistant coach Bernie Fine was fired amid allegations of child molestation and center Fab Melo was sidelined for four games due to academic concerns.
Tuesday, the day the Orange left upstate for downstate where they had to wait two days for their quarterfinal round Big East Tournament game, they awoke to a story by Yahoo! Sports alleging recreational drug use by former players.
Somehow Syracuse managed to squeeze in 30 wins — 31 after yesterday’s riveting 58-55 come-from-behind victory over Connecticut in another ridiculously compelling Big East tourney game — and just one loss.
All of those distractions might have derailed lesser teams.
Not Syracuse. Not coach Jim Boeheim. Not this year.
“Teams that lose say that,’’ Boeheim said in a hallway outside the locker room. “That’s the bottom line. Teams that lose say, ‘Oh, yeah, this was on our [mind].’ That’s [B.S].’’
For the record, there was no whiff of cannabis wafting out of the Syracuse locker room. The sign on the locker room door didn’t read, ‘Syrajuana.’ According to the Yahoo! report, at least 10 players tested positive for recreational drug use since 2001, but none of the players on this team — this astoundingly deep, remarkably talented, selfless team — were implicated in the story.
When informed about the report on Tuesday, Boeheim talked with his players.
“[He said] ‘This has nothing to do with you,’ ’’ said senior Brandon Triche. “ ‘Don’t worry about it.’ ’’
The Orange, who will play Cincinnati tonight in one semifinal, have been mastering the art of tuning out the noise since the summer.
They knew Boeheim meant it when he said after last season that nine, 10, maybe even 11 players would see serious minutes this year.
So when they played pickup games, eight or nine games a day in the Carmelo K. Anthony Center, the Orange players knew Beoheim’s philosophy would face “negative darts,” C.J. Fair said.
Players would get jealous over playing time. Or, a team can’t build chemistry playing that many players. Or, who becomes the go-to guy?
Yesterday the go-to player turned out be James Southerland of Bayside, who entered the game almost incognito, averaging just 6.6 points in 15 minutes and left with 10 points in 27 minutes and a couple of one-on-one TV interviews.
“Boeheim tells them to be ready,’’ Southerland’s coach at Cardozo High, Ron Naclero, told The Post. “On this team, you better be.’’
You also had better be tone deaf. During those pickup games, the Syracuse players began building an Orange Wall, a soundproof one.
“We X-out the noise,’’ senior Kris Joseph said. “We focus on basketball.’’
Why not? The Orange believed they had the makings of a championship team. The seniors knew there would be adversity — there always is — so they began tuning out any voices not in an Orange jersey.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys that are built for this,’’ Triche said. “They’re built for adversity. They’ve faced it all their lives. They’ve overcome the ups and downs. It’s going to take more than talk to take us down.’’
That is Boeheim’s approach. When asked how he has handled the non-basketball talk, he channeled his inner Tiger Woods.
“Put it away,’’ Boeheim said. “When you play golf, you have a bad hole, you put it away, play the next hole. I learned that a long time ago.’’
His players have learned it, too. Instead of flipping the bird, they flip the on/off switch on the noise machine. Hear no evil.