(REUTERS) — Carmelo Anthony stepped up from the start and Syracuse’s zone defense did the rest as the Orangemen punched their ticket for New Orleans.

Anthony scored 20 points and added 10 rebounds to lead coach Jim Boeheim and Syracuse back to the Final Four for the first time in seven years with a 63-47 victory over top-seeded Oklahoma in the East Regional final Sunday.

The third-seeded Orangemen (28-5) will face Texas, who won the South Regional final by beating Michigan State 85-76.

After slow starts in the first three games of the NCAA tournament, Anthony came out strong. The freshman star scored 10 points in the opening 12 minutes.

Syracuse’s two-three zone took over from there, causing the Sooners (27-7) fits inside and outside. The Sooners managed just three points over the final eight and a half minutes of the first half as Syracuse took a 30-20 lead.

Things got worse for Oklahoma from there.

Syracuse scored the first eight points of the second half to take its biggest lead on a 3-pointer by freshman Gerry McNamara with 15:35 to play that capped a 22-3 run.

The last time Syracuse was in the Final Four was 1996, when it lost to Kentucky in the national championship game. The last time the Orangemen were in New Orleans for a Final Four, they lost to Indiana in the 1987 championship.

Now, Boeheim gets another chance at that elusive national title.

As the final seconds ticked off, Anthony finally looked like a freshman as he stood near midcourt, jumping up and down before flinging the ball high toward the roof of Pepsi Arena.

When Anthony was announced as the regional MVP, the partisan sellout crowd of 15,207 started chanting “One more year,” hoping that this wouldn’t be his first and last NCAA tournament.

Hakim Warrick had 13 points and nine rebounds for Syracuse, which was playing just two-and-a-half hours from its campus.

The Orangemen shot 52 percent from the field (25-for-48) — just 2-for-12 on threes — and out-rebounded Oklahoma 40-28.

De’Angelo Alexander had 14 points for Oklahoma, which was trying to get back to the Final Four and make up for last year’s loss to Indiana in the national semifinals.

The only thing that kept the game even remotely close was Syracuse’s poor free-throw shooting. The Orangemen missed eight of their first 11 in the second half.

The Sooners shot just 31 percent (18-for-58), including 5-for-28 from three-point range.

Hollis Price had eight points, all in the second half, and was 3-for-17 from the field and 2-for-11 on threes.

Oklahoma missed its first seven shots of the half and committed four turnovers before Price broke the drought with a three with 14:58 left that made it 38-23.

Coach Kelvin Sampson tried everything to get the Sooners going against the zone. He called three timeouts in the first half and a fourth with 13:35 to play.

Syracuse was the only one of the four Big East teams to reach the regional semifinals to win in the third round.

The Orangemen helped the conference again. The win over Oklahoma guaranteed the Big 12 could not get three teams in the Final Four — something only the Big East has done, in 1985.