NEW YORK — Dion Waiters shook off Ryan Boatright with ease. Driving from the left wing, Waiters stopped on a dime at the left elbow.

Boatright kept going. Down one point, Waiters was left with no one in front of him and a free throw to give Syracuse the lead.

‘I just gave a little hesitation. I saw he wasn’t in the picture no more,’ Waiters said. ‘And I just said: This is a foul shot. I stayed there, shot it, kept my follow through.’

The jumper put Syracuse ahead by one with 5:46 left. Syracuse and Connecticut struggled offensively all game, and UConn led for 11 consecutive second-half minutes, but the Orange found enough late. No. 2 Syracuse (31-1) held on for a 58-55 win over defending tournament champion Connecticut (20-13) in the Big East quarterfinals Thursday, in front of a sellout crowd of 20,057 in Madison Square Garden. The Orange shot 38.5 percent for the game but turned the ball over only four times.

A lineup of Waiters, James Southerland, Brandon Triche, Kris Joseph and Fab Melo played for most of the second half. Waiters’ 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and some key shots by James Southerland propelled SU ahead.

Syracuse moves on to the semifinals, where it will play Cincinnati on Friday at 7 p.m.

‘Both teams struggled shooting the ball, and both teams are very good defensively,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘We couldn’t really get anything going offensively, and then we changed something just a little bit. Got a little bit more space.’

Led by Waiters 10 points in seven first-half minutes, Syracuse clung to a 27-24 lead at halftime. But the Huskies gained momentum early in the second half.

With the game tied at 29, Boatright came up with a rebound and pushed the ball ahead. The UConn guard drove into Triche and drew a foul while making the basket inside. It instigated a 10-2 Huskies run that put them ahead 39-31.

‘They were in great position, and I thought our guys just dug down on defense, played a little bit harder and got going on offense,’ Boeheim said. ‘It was a great comeback.’

Boeheim stuck with the same five on the floor for the entire comeback. Scoop Jardine played the first three minutes of the second half and never returned. C.J. Fair, who made his fourth start of the season, saw five minutes in the final 20.

Syracuse began to mount a comeback. Standing at the top of the key, Melo fired a pass to Waiters cutting to the hoop from the left side. The layup brought SU within six.

With 10:31 left, Joseph drove from the left side and spun into Jeremy Lamb, using his size advantage to draw the Huskies forward’s third foul and the team’s seventh. In a one-and-one situation, Joseph made both free throws, bringing the score to 42-39.

‘We knew we had to make stops, and we knew we had to make shots at the other end,’ Melo said. ‘And Kris Joseph did a great job going to the basket. They’re fouling him and he made some free throws.’

As the game grew tenser, Waiters and Southerland became the go-to players for the Orange.

Melo went up for a layup with Syracuse down 47-43, and Andre Drummond flew through to swat it. The block ricocheted to Triche, who quickly fed Southerland at the top of the key for a 3 to bring SU back within one.

‘I think James is a very, very good offensive player, and I think he hasn’t scratched his potential,’ Boeheim said. ‘He’s getting better every day. He’s got to help us more on the boards, but he’s a tremendous shooter.’

Two minutes went by without any points until Waiters’ pull-up jumper gave Syracuse the lead. And on Syracuse’s first possession since taking the lead, it went back to Southerland.

This time, the Orange forward drilled a 3 over UConn forward Tyler Olander, pushing the lead to four and forcing UConn head coach Jim Calhoun to use a timeout.

Southerland and Waiters met near midcourt for an emphatic chest bump.

‘He can make those shots, and he made them early in the year,’ Boeheim said. ‘He struggled a little bit during the week, but he’s been making them in practice.’

Southerland also sank a jumper from the right baseline to put the Orange ahead 55-49 with 1:14 to play. The shot sealed a win for Syracuse, which held the Huskies without a field goal for 7:07 late in the second half to take control of the game.

Syracuse did just enough to survive and beat UConn for the third time this season.

‘I thought they’d make it hard for us,’ Calhoun said. ‘That’s when they had a couple plays and we didn’t. I think you could probably play that back and find — you could make an easy way for Connecticut to win that game, just the way it played out.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on March 7, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr