Quentin Hillsman pulled his team aside during the last media timeout against Louisville on Feb. 10 and tried to teach one last lesson to his players. The Orange trailed the Cardinals by 38 with 3:43 remaining, but Hillsman thought his team still had something to fight for.

‘I said, ‘Let this be a lesson to all of us to never put ourselves in a position where someone has a chance to do this to you again,’ Hillsman said. ”Let’s also take this opportunity now to learn and compete harder, and let’s get the lead down to 30 to at least end the game strong.”

The Orange was unable to cut the lead to 30 points – in fact it actually grew to 48 before the game was over. SU has a second chance against the No. 23 Cardinals at the Carrier Dome Saturday at 1 p.m.

Instead of putting the game behind them, the players are using the team’s biggest loss of the season – 98-50 – as motivation for the rematch.

Louisville took an early lead against the Orange in the first game, heading into the locker room with a 20-point lead. The Cardinals did not hold back in the second half, even leaving in some starters in the final minutes of the game, drawing the ire of many SU players.

‘I’m definitely going to have it in the back of my mind what they did to us,’ junior forward Fantasia Goodwin said. ‘I thought it was real disrespectful and not classy at all. That’s our motivation.’

Louisville outscored the Orange 54-26 in the second half, and the Cardinals even added an 11-0 run in the final 1:30 of the game.

Sophomore guard Cintia Johnson said the Orange came out of the gate with a poor start, something that has plagued SU all season long. When the Cardinals were still playing starters down the stretch, she said the Orange became motivated to come back but the game was already out of reach.

‘It made us angry and it made us want to play hard,’ Johnson said. ‘But by them doing that it shouldn’t have made us want to do that. We should have wanted to play hard the whole game.’

Hillsman said it doesn’t matter whether he was bothered or not by Louisville playing starters until the end.

He said the Orange should not be upset about Louisville adding to the score at the end because SU should be good enough to not get blown out. He said no matter what the other team does, his team needs to be ready to respond.

‘If (Louisville head coach Tom Collen) plays his starters 40 minutes, we have to be able to compete against his starters for 40 minutes,’ he said. ‘That’s how we prepare for every game.’

Even though he was not blaming Collen for the blowout, Hillsman said he would not coach that way if the tables were turned and Syracuse had a 40-point lead in the final minutes of the game.

‘I’m going to sub and hold the ball,’ he said. ‘The reality of the matter is he did what he had to do, and that’s not how I operate.’

Goodwin is hoping for a little more revenge than her head coach. She said Collen did what he had to do to win the game but thought he could have dealt with the end of the game differently.

If Syracuse got the chance to make the Cardinals feel like the Orange did the last time, Goodwin said she would want to treat them the same way.

‘I would love to be out there,’ she said. ‘I felt so hurt after the game. Two wrongs don’t make a right but it sure makes it even.’

Published on February 22, 2007 at 12:00 pm