NOV. 16, 10:33 P.M. — All it took was a little ribbing from Carmelo Anthony to spark Donte Greene.

When Greene called the former Syracuse star after his 25-point performance for the Denver Nuggets in a win over Portland Wednesday night, Anthony had a few things to say to Syracuse’s newest freshman phenom.

‘He told me how I can’t take over a game early and I gotta work on doing that,’ Greene said. ‘So I’m definitely going to call him tonight and let him know what happened.’

Greene scored Syracuse’s first 11 points Friday night in Syracuse’s 80-63 win over Fordham.

Take that ‘Melo.

The Orange took over from Greene’s hot start and played its best half of the early season. After building a 14-point lead headed into the locker room, Syracuse cruised past the Rams by 17 points, in front of 21,180 at the Carrier Dome.

Next up for the Orange (3-0) is a trip to Madison Square Garden on Wednesday to take on last year’s national runner-up Ohio State in the semifinals of the NIT Tip-Off. Game time is 9 p.m.

Greene scored a career-high 25 points on an impressive 10-for-14 shooting mark, including two on an unbelievable alley-oop pass from Jonny Flynn that Greene had to reach well behind his back to catch the ball and slam it home.

The Carrier Dome crowd exploded into a frenzy as the dunk was replayed three times on the Dome’s big board.

The dunk was what the fans remembered, but it was part of a first half that was Syracuse’s best 20 minutes in the young season.

Syracuse, as a whole, had 13 assists to only four turnovers in the first half. The Orange forced nine Fordham (2-2) turnovers and scored 13 points off of the giveaways. SU outscored the Rams 22-4 inside the paint and shot 55 percent from the field overall in the first 20 minutes.

‘Donte got us going early,’ Boeheim said. ‘He was tremendous early. Everybody picked it up after that.’

Senior guard Josh Wright was not in the building for the game and has not practiced in two days after logging four minutes in SU’s first game and not playing against St. Joseph’s on Tuesday.

‘His father called me tonight,’ Boeheim said. ‘He’s home, he doesn’t feel well. I haven’t seen him. That’s it. That’s all I know.’

Three Syracuse players – Greene, Eric Devendorf (17 points) and Arinze Onuaku (12 points) – scored in double figures. Greene finished one rebound shy of his first double-double.

The 6-foot-11 freshman paced Syracuse in the beginning of the game, when Fordham started out hot. The Rams made their first three shots, all 3-pointers, against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense. So less than three minutes into the game, Boeheim switched to man and Fordham scored a total of 20 points over the final 17 minutes of the half.

Still, a pesky Fordham team stayed within 15 points for much of the second half with timely 3-point shooting. The Rams attempted a whopping 29 3’s and made 11 of them. But a Greene 3-pointer with 12:22 left in the game made the score 57-41 and the comeback effort was stifled.

Syracuse’s first half effort was too much for Fordham to overcome.

‘I thought we did a good job defensively, got some fast-break baskets and made some good offensive plays,’ Boeheim said of the first half.

Syracuse’s run-and-gun offense was functioning in full force. Flynn had eight assists opposed to zero turnovers and more than once fed Onuaku and Rick Jackson down low. Jackson was perfect in the first half, going 4-for-4 from the field for nine points.

Flynn even added some flair of his own with a steal and a slam with 7:08 remaining in the first half to cap a 14-3 Syracuse run and push the score to 30-21 Orange.

‘When we get in our runs in the game and start running up and down the floor, it’s like poetry in motion almost,’ Flynn said. ‘Just throwing no look passes, knowing somebody’s gonna be there. You got dunks, crazy moves, our team is just a great team to watch.’

So now Greene will call Anthony, the man who brought SU’s national title as a freshman in 2003, and tell him to watch that new blood at Syracuse.

Oh, he’ll take some more advice, too.

‘That’s my big brother,’ Greene said of Anthony. ‘He looks out for me. He’s not going to kiss my butt. He’s in the NBA. He knows what it takes to get there, so let me know, I’m trying to get there.’

Published on November 17, 2007 at 12:00 pm