Sam Quigley dribbled into the paint before turning around and noticing her open teammate. The DePaul sophomore saw Deirdre Naughton at the top of the key and passed it to her for a wide-open look.

Naughton drilled the 3-pointer, the Blue Demons’ 14th of the game, and gave her team a 13-point lead with 6 minutes, 12 seconds remaining in Tuesday night’s game against Syracuse. While DePaul did not hit another 3-pointer the rest of the game, it didn’t matter. The 14 previous ones had done their damage.

DePaul hit 14-of-34 3-point shots to defeat Syracuse, 87-79, Tuesday night. The Blue Demons connected on more 3’s than they have all season, and sent Syracuse to its fifth straight home loss. Quigley and Naughton combined for 11 3’s and 48 points.

‘Their 3-point shooting was good,’ Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘And it hurt us. We had good schemes on what to do on their 3-point shooting and they shook loose about two or thee times in the second half, and I think that kind of blew the game open.’

DePaul came into the contest 14th in the Big East in 3-point field goal percentage, but Syracuse came in 13th in the Big East in 3-point field goal defense percentage. Teams have had success shooting against the Orange’s 2-3 zone defense from long range, and Tuesday was no different.

To start the game, the Blue Demons hit three 3-point shots to take an 11-6 lead only 2:03 into the contest. In the first 6:02 of the second half, DePaul hit five 3’s to break a 40-40 tie at halftime and take a 59-48 lead.

‘Tonight, it was beautiful to see the inside-outside balance wake up against a very strong Syracuse zone,’ DePaul head coach Doug Bruno said. ‘And it was very great to see Deirdre and Sam hits from the floor, especially early in the game.’

DePaul finished with seven 3-point shots in the first half and hit another seven in the second half. Quigley, who set a career high in 3’s made and points, hit five 3-point shots while Naughton tied a career high with six as well.

The key to DePaul’s 3-point shooting was his ability to move the ball around the zone. The Blue Demons often took the extra pass to find the best shot against the Syracuse defense. This created open looks that DePaul drilled. And it hit the contested ones, too.

Though at times DePaul created its own turnovers by throwing the ball cross court, for the most part, the passes were short and crisp. With so much ball movement, it becomes hard for a zone defense to always get a hand in the shooter’s face.

‘When you get in the zone and get on the perimeter and start scrambling, like coach said, they’re a very unselfish team, and once you make that extra pass it puts us in a close-out situation,’ SU shooting guard Erica Morrow said. ‘I think it’s just their unselfishness, and they moved the ball really well.’

Bruno said that when playing against a team like Syracuse, a team has to have patience in the zone and make the extra passes. He thought his team did a good job of using the zone to its advantage.

He said Syracuse did not leave his team open and made his players work for baskets, while neutralizing Quigley and Naughton for stretches of the second half.

But despite what Bruno said, Syracuse’s defense could not do enough. Another team blasted the Orange from long range and sent the Orange to its eight conference loss.

‘I thought that they had three or four open looks in the second half and they made them,’ Hillsman said. ‘That’s a sign of a good shooting team, you give them the open look and they make the shot. But overall, I got to watch the tape again, but I thought we got there and they made some contested ones that were completely deep shots.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on February 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm