SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Both words are almost foreign to him, but Carmelo Anthony is sure to make a distinction between ‘struggled’ and ‘missing.’

Anthony, a forward, shot 1 of 5 in the opening eight minutes of the No. 12 Syracuse men’s basketball team’s 92-88 win over No. 16 Notre Dame last night. He finished with 21 points on 9-of-23 shooting. He shot 1 of 5 on 3-pointers and grabbed 10 rebounds.

When asked if he felt he struggled in the first half, Anthony, a tad irritated, said, ‘Hell no, man, I wasn’t struggling. I was just missing. I wouldn’t say that’s struggling. They played some tough defense. I’ll give them that. But I came through when it counted.’

Indeed, Anthony’s put-back layup off a missed jumper by forward Hakim Warrick gave the Orangemen a 90-88 lead with 32.6 left. Though Anthony scored seven points in the first half, he made several key plays down the stretch.

With 2:25 left in the game and SU holding an 86-83 lead, Anthony stuffed a shot from Notre Dame guard Torrian Jones. Though the Irish tied the game at 86 with a 3-pointer from guard Matt Carroll, Anthony answered with a driving layup to put SU up 88-86 with 1:32 left.

And while the Irish bumped him, he maintained a measure of poise, something he failed to do last Saturday at Georgetown, when his frustration with physical defense almost reached a boiling point.

‘(Notre Dame) was trying to play physical with me,’ Anthony said. ‘But I don’t think they were used to playing physical.’

Said SU head coach Jim Boeheim: ‘He wasn’t able to get much of anything going in the first half. He struggled a little bit tonight.’

Anthony’s 21 points were his fewest since he scored 21 in a 66-60 SU win over St. John’s on Feb. 18. Still, Anthony is seven points away from passing Lawrence Moten’s single-season freshman scoring record of 583, which Moten set in 32 games in 1991-92. Should Anthony break that mark in Sunday’s regular-season finale against Rutgers, he’d do it in 27 games. And Anthony’s 22.2 points per game are four more than Moten averaged in ’91-’92.

So after last night’s game, Anthony was, well, typical Anthony. He sat shirtless by his locker, joking with roommate and SU guard Billy Edelin as Edelin chatted with a reporter.

Before Edelin was even asked a question about his career-high 26 points, Anthony interjected, ‘Chris Thomas was too small for him, man,’ a reference to the Notre Dame guard who defended Edelin.

Later, Anthony was asked about SU’s chances of winning next week’s Big East tournament in Madison Square Garden. The Orangemen earned a first-round bye with a win last night.

‘We’re real confident,’ said Anthony, who scored 27 points in SU’s season opener against Memphis in the Garden. ‘Playing in New York, it’s like we’re home. What makes me so confident? We’re winning right now.’

Published on March 4, 2003 at 12:00 pm