The Syracuse women’s basketball team might be heading to Alaska for a basketball tournament, but that wasn’t the only thing on Erica Morrow’s mind when asked about the Orange’s cross-country excursion.

‘It’s going to be cold, I’d rather be in the Bahamas, but Alaska, they have a great tournament and it’s a great opportunity for us to go somewhere as a team and be together and see some nice stuff,’ Morrow said after the Orange’s 82-77, overtime win in its home opener again Portland State. ‘And see some polar bears.’

While a trip to see the local wildlife probably is not on head coach Quentin Hillsman’s itinerary, the team will nonetheless make its longest road trip of the season to participate in the Great Alaska Shootout starting tomorrow.

Syracuse (3-1) opens against Jackson State (0-2) at 11:59 p.m in Anchorage, Alaska, before facing either Cal State Northridge (0-4) or defending champions Alaska Anchorage (5-1) Wednesday night.

The voyage to Alaska is another step in Hillsman’s plan to challenge his team with early road games. At the conclusion of the tournament, SU will have played five of its first six games on the road.

While he could have scheduled home games and kept the team in Syracuse during the holiday, he instead chose to have the team leave the mainland United States and spend time together.

‘It will be huge,’ Hillsman said earlier this season. ‘It was actually why we scheduled it that way because we were very good at home and I think that some of our road losses really hurt us.’

So far, the Orange has responded fairly well to Hillsman’s challenge. Syracuse is 2-1 on the road, with its lone loss coming to then-No. 17 Ohio State. On opening night, the team held off Siena, and then blew out Maryland-Eastern Shore by 40 points two days later.

While the challenges of the road games are one thing, the team also seems to be coming together to address challenges from within. Playing without junior forward Nicole Michael on Saturday against Portland State, SU had to replace the valuable minutes Michael averaged over the first three contests (23.7).

In her absence, freshman Tyler Ash started her first career game, freshman Troya Berry played a career-high 31 minutes, and backup Lina Lisnere came two minutes shy of matching her season high in minutes played. The Orange played nine players for double-digit minutes and rallied to come back from a 14-point deficit in the second half.

While Michael will make the trip to Alaska and Hillsman said she is doing extremely well, the team came together without her and still won a game against a quality team.

‘I think because we respect coach so much and we want to please him in every aspect of the game because he works so hard for us I feel like we just wanted to come together for Syracuse and for our fans,’ Morrow said after defeating Portland State.

While the Orange might not make the trip to see the polar bears that Morrow hoped for, the team will still compete in the tournament and look to continue to acclimate itself to playing on the road.

‘If we can get on the road and win some of those road games and get some confidence and continuity on the road,’ Hillsman said, ‘I think that it will serve us well in our Big East games.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on November 24, 2008 at 12:00 pm