There were only four people in the locker room – one player and three reporters. Still, Gerry McNamara was barely audible after Syracuse lost to DePaul by 39 points nine days ago.

Now, McNamara and SU can be heard loud and clear.

Seconds away from playing in the wasteland of the NIT thanks to that awful loss to the Blue Demons, the Orange completed one of the greatest four-day turnarounds in college basketball history and earned a No. 5 seed in the Atlanta Region of the NCAA Tournament.

The talk of the nation, Syracuse faces 12th-seeded Texas A&M, a program making its first NCAA appearance in 19 years, on Thursday in a late 9:40 p.m. tip-off at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla. A win would pit the Orange against fourth-seeded Louisiana State or 13th-seeded Iona on Saturday.

SU’s seed wasn’t a shock after an RPI jump from 43 to 17 and a schedule that finished as the toughest in the country after the Big East tournament. The Orange (23-11) played its best four games of the season in defeating Cincinnati, No. 1 Connecticut, No. 23 Georgetown and No. 16 Pittsburgh to become the first team ever to win the Big East tournament with four wins in four days. It no doubt helped Syracuse’s case the Big East in 2005-06 was considered one of the best conferences ever, sending a record eight teams to the Big Dance.

But a year after losing in the first round as a fourth seed to 13th-seeded Vermont, Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim all but brushed off his team’s seed.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Boeheim said in a news conference in Manley Fieldhouse after the field of 65 was announced shortly after 6 on Sunday night. ‘When you’re in the NCAA Tournament you’ve got to play well. When we’ve gotten to the NCAA Tournament and played well, we’ve won. When we don’t play well we go home. There are no more gimmie games in the NCAA Tournament.’

The Aggies (21-8) are a surprise opponent given the team’s long NCAA drought and that they were 0-16 in the Big 12 just two seasons ago. This year, A&M finished fourth in the Big 12 with a 10-6 record and lost to No. 8 Texas in the semifinals of the conference tournament on Saturday. But the Aggies beat the Longhorns on March 1 – likely the quality win that pushed them over the top.

Texas A&M plays a balanced inside-outside game with 6-foot-3 guard Acie Law and 6-foot-9 center Joseph Jones, who are the team’s only players that score in double digits with 15.9 and 15.8, respectively. The next two leading scorers are a pair of guards – Josh Carter and Dominique Kirk – that could challenge SU’s 2-3 zone with their 40 percent shooting from 3-point range.

But the backbone of the team is defense. Before allowing 74 points to Texas on Saturday, Texas A&M didn’t allow more than 60 points in the previous eight games.

‘Texas is a great team, so any team that beats them is going to be a pretty competitive team,’ McNamara said. ‘Over the next couple of days I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more about them, but like I said, we just have to go down there and perform.’

Perform like the team did in New York City would be preferred. All five players extended and collapsed in the zone better than they have all season. All five players on the court, especially the starters, were viable scoring options for the first time all year.

‘I think we had more balance and that was it, bottom line,’ Boeheim said. ‘We ran the same plays but we ran them a little bit better and little bit more spread out. I just think that our big guys moved a little bit better.’

Still, the star was McNamara. Appearing to use recent criticism as motivation, the senior was at his finest in New York. After shooting 32.5 percent from the 3-point line during the season, McNamara shot at a 45.7 clip in Madison Square Garden. He averaged 16.3 points and 8.3 assists in earning the most outstanding player award of the tournament. He drained game-changing 3’s in every game, starting with the one that beat Cincinnati, 74-73, with .5 seconds left.

Without that shot, Syracuse would be playing in the NIT for sure. Though Seton Hall lost in the first round of the Big East tournament, it still qualified for the NCAA Tournament and Cincinnati was left out. Boeheim thought the reason may have been because one of the Bearcats’ best players, guard Armien Kirkland, was lost for the season early in conference play.

‘I think Cincinnati should’ve gotten in,’ Boeheim said. ‘I think that the thing that hurt them was that they won their two best non-conference games with Kirkland. I don’t know if that’s what the committee will say but it would have been interesting if we lost to UConn to see who would have gotten in. But I’m glad I don’t have to.’

Despite its loss to SU, Connecticut still earned the No. 1 seed in the Washington D.C., bracket and was the pick of most pundits on Sunday night to win the championship. Villanova, with guard Allan Ray still uncertain with an eye injury suffered Friday, is the No. 1 seed in the Minneapolis bracket. The other Big East teams that helped set a record with eight entries were Pittsburgh (No. 5), West Virginia (No. 6), Georgetown (No. 7), Marquette (No. 7) and Seton Hall (No. 10).

In Syracuse’s region, Duke is the No. 1 seed and Texas the No. 2 seed.

The trip is Syracuse’s 31st to the NCAA tournament, the 25th in 30 years for Boeheim. Syracuse’s only national title came in 2002-03 when McNamara was a freshman. The Orange has reached the Final Four on three other occasions – twice under Boeheim in 1986-87 and 1995-96 when it lost in the championship game. A third seed when it won the championship in 2003, SU went to the Sweet 16 as a No. 5 in 2004 and lost in the first round as a No. 4 in 2005.

But McNamara, the last prominent member from the 2003 championship team, could care less about history. His team made a huge noise after it was near dead in that locker room in Rosemont, Ill., on March 2, and that’s all that matters. His play allowed Syracuse to go all the way from having its bubble pretty much pricked to a label as one of the hottest team’s in the country. And after watching SU defeat four talented teams in four days, who knows what the future holds? For now, just Texas A&M on Thursday.

‘I’m not worried about what I did in the past,’ McNamara said. ‘I’m worried about what I’m trying to do now and what I’m trying to do in the future. When I look back and my career is over, that’s fine. I’ll definitely enjoy watching some of the things I did, some of the memories I’ve had. But right now I don’t care about those things.’

Published on March 12, 2006 at 12:00 pm