HARTFORD, Conn. – There were few positive aspects to take out of Syracuse’s 54-point blowout loss at No. 1 Connecticut Saturday, but Orange head coach Quentin Hillsman tried to find a silver lining in his post-game press conference.

The Orange had just been humiliated by the Huskies, getting outplayed on both ends of the court and losing by more points than it had scored. At times, the game looked like a junior varsity team playing against the varsity team. But for Hillsman, he didn’t talk of how his team got drubbed.

Instead, he saw this as a learning experience.

‘They are a very good team, and he (UConn head coach Geno Auriemma) has got the formula down on what you have to do to win a national championship,’ Hillsman said in his introductory statement. ‘The beautiful part about it is that every year we get to see it. It was good for us to see so we know where we need to go.’

And if it is a learning experience, the Orange certainly have a lot to learn.

UConn showed Syracuse how long the Orange must go to be mentioned in the same echelon as No. 1 Connecticut as it defeated Syracuse, 107-53, Saturday afternoon in front of a crowd of 13,086 at the XL Center.

UConn (18-0, 5-0 Big East) dominated every aspect of the game against Syracuse (13-5, 2-3 Big East), setting several individual and team records in the process. Huskies’ sophomore Maya Moore became the fastest player to reach 1,000 points in UConn history, scoring a career-high 40 points, and broke the team’s single-game record of 3-pointers with 10.

Coming into the contest, Hillsman talked about needing sophomore guards Erica Morrow and Tasha Harris to prevent Moore from getting open and making sure that Connecticut senior guard Renee Montgomery could not get going.

This opened up shooting lanes for freshman Caroline Doty, who hit four 3-pointers in the first seven minutes to give UConn a 22-9 lead. Once the Orange started to collapse on Doty, shooting lanes reopened up for Moore, who drilled shot after shot from beyond the arc, creating a 20-point lead for the Huskies at the half.

‘Maya is obviously a great player,’ Morrow said. ‘On our defensive rotations she got open looks and we are all college athletes and can hit an open shot – not to take anything away from her, she’s a great player.’

Instead of buckling down in the second half, Syracuse, only losing by six to UConn last season, further regressed.

If there were open shots in the first half, there were nearly twice as many in the second. Doty left in the first half with a torn ACL in her knee, but Moore picked up the slack, connecting on 10-of-14 in 3-point shots and scoring 17 points in the second half alone.

Syracuse, meanwhile, only managed 25 points in the second half as it watched UConn balloon its lead to as many as 58 points. The Orange did not score 10 points in the half until 6:52 remained in the period. Syracuse actually missed nine baskets between its 36th and 38th points, spanning a total of seven minutes.

Syracuse ended up shooting only 30.9 percent from the floor and just 20 percent from deep. UConn hit 52.1 percent of its shots, while hitting an absurd 18-of-39 jumpers from downtown (marking a school record for made 3-pointers).

With this game in the books, Syracuse must now look ahead to the near future and tackling Pittsburgh Saturday at the Carrier Dome. But it doesn’t seem too long ago that Hillsman talked about Syracuse being the best team in the Big East.

With Saturday’s performance from the Orange, SU still has a long way to go. Just ask Auriemma. While the coach said the Orange has come a long way and is confident it can win, he wasn’t surprised to win the game by 54 points.

‘Was I surprised? No, I wasn’t surprised,’ Auriemma said. ‘They might be surprised, but I wasn’t surprised. We’re really good and they gave us a lot of open shots, and when you give a good team a lot of open shots, you’re going to get beat by 50.’ mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm