The Syracuse women’s basketball team trailed by 17 just seven minutes into Tuesday night’s game against No. 23 Notre Dame. Then, suddenly, the Orange put together an impressive 24-7 run to cut the deficit to just two after 20 minutes of action.

Not surprisingly, Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman was more than content with the halftime score.

‘I mean, that was the thing on the road you just want to have a chance to win the basketball game,’ Hillsman said in a telephone interview after the game. ‘We just wanted to make sure that at the end of the game, we were one or two baskets away from winning the basketball game. At that point, I couldn’t be happier. We couldn’t have been in a better position.’

But less than 10 minutes into the second half, the Orange was in a worse position, as Notre Dame ballooned the lead back to 17 points. With that went Syracuse’s chances, resulting in yet another Big East loss for the Orange.

The Fighting Irish used an early second-half run that opened the game to defeat Syracuse, 90-79, at the Joyce Center in South Bend, Ind. Syracuse lost its 10th conference game of the season and now cannot place higher than 10th in the conference.

‘I knew that with our players, we were going to get back into the game and getting ourselves to make some plays,’ Hillsman said. ‘There were times in the second half we were one or two shots away from cutting it to seven, cutting it to eight, we just kept trying to get it back into a two-possession game.’

After Syracuse worked to cut Notre Dame’s lead to just two at the half, Syracuse (15-12, 4-10 Big East) could not come out of the gate in the second half with the same intensity. Notre Dame went on a 27-12 run to take a 65-48 lead with 10 minutes, 10 seconds remaining.

Hillsman said foul trouble contributed to the Orange’s slow start. Earlier in the game at the 14:53 mark, Notre Dame (19-7, 8-6 Big East) lead by eight and Syracuse picked up its ninth personal foul of the half after a technical was called on Juanita Ward. Notre Dame had not been whistled for a foul yet.

‘At the beginning of the second half, the fouls were 9-0 in the first three minutes (sic), and they were shooting free throws in the first two minutes of the second half,’ Hillsman said. ‘That took our aggressiveness away because we were in a one-and-one and got to be really careful with what we were doing on defense.’

SU made a late run, though. Marisa Gobuty hit a jumper to cut the lead to nine with just 6:23 remaining. Notre Dame responded with a 6-0 run, capped with a layup by Lindsay Schrader to expand the lead to 15 with under five minutes to go. Schrader finished with a game-high 23 points.

Erica Morrow led Syracuse with 18 points, Nicole Michael had 17 and Chandrea Jones finished with 16. Notre Dame had five players in double-digit points. Hillsman thought his defense ‘was there’ and forced a lot of uncontested looks, but the Fighting Irish still scored the second-most points against the Orange all season.

While Hillsman’s squad dropped its third game in a row, he was pleased with his team’s effort following the quick turnaround after Sunday night’s one-point loss to Georgetown.

‘They played very tough,’ Hillsman said. ‘I told the kids we would have to score 90 points to win the basketball game and they won with 90, so I mean we had to score. I’m pleased with the effort and how hard they played.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on February 24, 2009 at 12:00 pm