COLOR THE FINAL BLUE vs. ORANGE

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. —  In the biggest game in the history of the school, the Mississippi State Bulldogs played a nice game of soccer Saturday, booting balls around the Meadowlands Arena with authority and pizazz.

Unfortunately for them, the Syracuse Orangemen stuck to basketball in this awkward NCAA semifinal game--timely, tenacious and increasingly triumphant basketball.

“At least I was being consistent, huh?” Bulldog point guard Marcus Bullard said with a dead smile, after his horrendous nine-turnover performance. “Throwing it away, kicking it away . . . “

Getting moments of brilliance from all five of its starters throughout the game, Syracuse took advantage of 21 Bulldog turnovers to move into the championship game with a 77-69 victory before 19,229 at the Meadowlands.

In the key minutes of the game, after Mississippi State had cut its deficit to three, 56-53, with 6:04 to play, the Orangemen cut off the Bulldogs for good with an array of quality play: Syracuse got a three-pointer from unsung forward Todd Burgan, a 15-foot jumper from star John Wallace and a steal and a three-pointer from shaky-shooting guard Jason Cipolla.

“That was the game when Jason made that play,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said.

So, on the ninth anniversary of Syracuse’s most famous near-hit--a last-second loss in the 1987 title game to Indiana--and with former great Derrick Coleman cheering from the stands, the overlooked Orangemen, the Big East’s fourth-place team, survived and advanced again Saturday.

Syracuse, which was seeded fourth in the West Regional, is the lowest-seeded team to make it to the title game since No. 6 Michigan lost to Duke in 1991.

“The turnovers set the tone,” said Syracuse point guard Lazarus Sims, whose careful passing kept the Orangemen’s turnover total to only five all game. He had nine assists, and no turnovers.

When it was over, Sims fired the basketball toward the Syracuse rooting section--the only pass of his that did not find its intended destination, instead bouncing near the press rows below.

“These kids play hard, they play together, and they’re not afraid to step up,” Boeheim said. “Todd Burgan has been struggling, he missed the three in the first half. I talked to him, and he said, ‘I can make the shot.’ And I said, ‘I guess you can.’ And he made the big one.

“That’s what we try to do at Syracuse, let the players play the game. It’s his shot.”

The Orangemen (29-8) were carried early by center Otis Hill, who had 15 first-half points against Bulldog big man Erick Dampier. Wallace led all scorers with 21 points--including a couple of floating fall-aways over Bulldog forward Dontae’ Jones.

Mississippi State (26-8), which rumbled through the Southeast Regional behind sparkling shooting, tough defense and efficient guard play, made a handful of quick jumpers early--climbing to a 15-8 lead--then proceeded to scatter basketballs wildly against Syracuse’s aggressive 2-3 zone.

Other than Bullard flinging passes away on the break, Dampier seemed most bothered by the Syracuse defense, dropping balls and tossing panicked passes when the Orangemen collapsed on him.

Despite Mississippi State’s 41-21 rebound advantage, the turnovers destroyed the Bulldogs.

“They just made a lot of mistakes,” Boeheim said. “I don’t think the turnovers were caused by anything we did, they just made bad plays early.”

Said Bullard: “It wasn’t anything about their zone, it was my bad decision-making in transition. If I don’t make all those bad decisions, we probably get easy shots and we probably win the game.”

Was it nerves that wrecked a Mississippi State team that was making its first Final Four appearance?

Said Jones, who had 16 points on six-of-16 shooting: “I don’t think it was nerves. We just weren’t hitting our shots.

“We might’ve been trying to push it a little bit too much. But that’s what we’ve been doing all tournament. We played the same way we played every game in the tournament, but we just didn’t make the plays tonight.”