You would think Jim Boeheim would want to sit around and enjoy talking about his team winning by 35 points.

“This game is a game you just forget about,” the Syracuse coach said after the 16th-ranked Orange used a big run in each half to run away to an 81-46 victory over Texas Tech on Thursday night in the semifinals of the 2K Sports College Hoop Classic.

“When a team can’t put the ball in the basket against you, it is just a matter of time before a game is out of control,” he said. “We try to make this a complicated game but even my 5-year-old knows that you just have to put the ball in the basket. We are nowhere that good and they are nowhere that bad.”

The Red Raiders missed their first 12 shots and 16 of their first 17 in falling behind 20-4.

“Sometimes there is a turning point in a game,” Texas Tech coach Bob Knight said. “This game was over in the first five minutes.”

The defending champion Orange (3-0) will play Florida in the championship game tonight at Madison Square Garden.

The matchup of two of the winningest coaches in college basketball history was never much of a game. Boeheim got his 706th career win and improved his record against Knight to 4-1, although Knight’s lone win was in the 1987 national championship game when he was with Indiana. Knight has 856 victories.

Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara, center, pass the ball off between Texas Tech's Martin Zeon, left, and Darryl Dora during the first half Thursday at Madison Square Garden in New York. McNamara had nine assists to compliment his team-high 12 points.

Gerry McNamara had 12 points and nine assists for Syracuse, which had six players with at least eight points.

“We expect that,” he said of the balanced scoring. “All the guys have to step up and they did tonight.”

Knight’s worst loss in his four-plus seasons at Texas Tech was 90-50 to Kansas University on March 9, 2002, his first season there.

“Syracuse is really good,” Knight said. “They play the zone, as I have said, the best I have ever seen.”

Dior Lowhorn had 11 points for the Red Raiders, who finished 17-for-59 from the field (28.8 percent) and committed 18 turnovers, 11 in the second half.

Boeheim said he was impressed with Florida.

“I think Florida is better than I have seen them in a long time,” he said. “That is why we play in these tournaments. These tournaments are great early in the year to get a feel for things.”