The crowd knew exactly what was next. With the tease for the introduction of one more Syracuse legend — and for him to be called out personally by men’s basketball head coach Jim Boeheim — everyone in the building knew it was the star who helped lead SU to its only national championship.

Out came Carmelo Anthony, and the Carrier Dome was buzzing.

Anthony, now with the New York Knicks, arrived at Syracuse’s Midnight Madness on Friday to support a Syracuse team with more expectations to repeat the feat of his 2003 national championship team than there has been in years. SU returns all but one player from a 27-win team last season, and prognosticators have the Orange in the top 10 — if not the top five — entering Boeheim’s 36th season as head coach.

‘Coming off of a successful year and you have a lot of guys back, your ranking’s going to be pretty good,’ Boeheim said earlier Friday at Syracuse’s media day. ‘As it should be.’

For the first time, Syracuse’s Midnight Madness was broadcast on ESPN3.com, and parts of it were aired on ESPNU.

Anthony sat courtside for all the festivities Friday, as the current Syracuse team held an intrasquad scrimmage, a dunk contest and a ‘battle of the sexes’ three-point shootout with the SU women’s team.

There was also a scrimmage between two teams made of some famous former SU players.

The 2011-12 Orange is a collection of experience and expectation. Syracuse brings back four starters. This includes fifth-year senior point guard Scoop Jardine, junior shooting guard Brandon Triche — entering his third year as a starter — and small forward Kris Joseph. Jardine and Joseph were named to the 50-player Wooden Award preseason watch list.

That experience spoke for itself right away in the Orange-White scrimmage, as Triche finished an alley-oop from Jardine on the first possession of the game.

Jardine, Triche, Joseph, Mookie Jones and Fab Melo started for the White team, while the Orange team was led by Dion Waiters, James Southerland, C.J. Fair, Baye Moussa Keita and freshman guard Michael Carter-Williams.

Carter-Williams is part of the high expectations. He is one-third of a highly touted freshman class for SU, alongside forward Rakeem Christmas and guard Trevor Cooney.

All three used the scrimmage to unofficially introduce themselves to the Carrier Dome crowd. Carter-Williams showed an innate ability to drive to the hoop and knocked down a 3-pointer as well. Cooney — known for his long-range shooting — hit his first 3 soon after entering, and Christmas scored his first bucket on a tip-in.

Those three, along with the nine returning players who could factor into the playing rotation, give Syracuse an extremely deep and talented squad.

‘I think this year we probably have the opportunity to have the most depth that we’ve ever had,’ Boeheim said at media day.

After the scrimmage, there was a dunk contest that was high on anticipation but low on execution.

Christmas, Cooney and Fair failed to ignite the crowd, missing their most ambitious dunk attempts.

Waiters finally put the crowd on its feet, successfully completing a between-the-legs slam. He then brought a young fan out from the stands and dunked over him, giving him a high five after the dunk.

Waiters advanced to the finals against Southerland, who completed a between-the-legs dunk after throwing the ball off the backboard, causing Anthony — a judge — to stand up and hold two ’10’ signs.

But in the finals, Southerland couldn’t cash in any of his attempts for a behind-the-back dunk, and Waiters won with a two-handed slam on a lob to himself.

This and that

Midnight Madness began with a performance from the Russian Bar Trio, whose acrobatic stunts created a strong tone with the crowd to start the night. … Rapper Meek Mill performed twice, once for five minutes early in the night and again to close out the night. The supporter Meek Mill had with him for his first performance was wearing a Waiters jersey. … There was also a Legends scrimmage played, in which John Wallace drained the game-winning 3-pointer with five seconds to go.

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on October 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr