For the first time in close to two months, the Syracuse women’s basketball team looked relaxed in its postgame press conference. The players joked, taking jabs at one another in their comments.

They even stuck around afterward, watching the fleeting moments of Connecticut and Rutgers and checking up on other Big East scores. Erica Morrow, Chandrea Jones and Nicole Michael finally seemed tranquil following a Syracuse home game.

It was a moment that the Orange hasn’t been able to experience often after games. Lately, it’s been too often a sight for the players to be understandably disturbed by a loss. Trying to find anything positive out of another frustrating loss.

But Monday night, it wasn’t the case. For the first time in seven home games, the Orange finally emerged victorious inside the Carrier Dome.

Syracuse ended its home losing streak with a gritty 78-72 victory Monday night in front of 952 fans on the team’s senior day. Syracuse (16-13, 5-11 Big East) dominated the first half and held off a late Providence (10-19, 4-12 Big East) rally.

‘It’s real important for our team and from everyone who was here last year and has been through the roller coaster of Syracuse basketball,’ Morrow said. ‘We’re just glad to get back and win basketball games, and hopefully we can get rolling in the Big East.’

The win gives Syracuse the No. 12 seed in the Big East tournament, which begins Friday at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn. The Orange will play St. John’s at noon Friday.

Syracuse’s first-half dominance paved the way for its win. In a contrast to how it normally plays in the first 20 minutes of action, the Orange blew the door open on the Friars en route to a 44-27 halftime lead.

Syracuse moved the ball around effectively to find the open player and shot effectively, at a 47.4 clip. Early in the game, Morrow came off a screen on the left side of the arc to drain a 3 that gave SU a 9-6 lead. Two possessions later, she used a screen to find separation on the right side of the arc to extend Syracuse’s lead to 14-6 with another 3-point shot. Morrow finished with 13 points and seven assists.

It was a testament of how well things went for the Orange. Jones hit a jumper just within the 3-point line with no time remaining on the clock to give the Orange a 17-point lead at the half. The lead would eventually balloon to 23 points with 17:45 remaining in the game.

‘We just played like a team and everybody on the team can shoot,’ said Michael, who finished with 22 points ‘We made shots. Everyone was comfortable with who shot the ball, and we kept just crashing the boards.’

The lead was not safe. Providence kept chipping away, putting pressure on Syracuse to maintain the output of the Friars. Providence head coach Phil Seymore said Syracuse started missing some shots in the second half that it hit in the first half, and that gave his team chances to come down and score.

But for the most part, SU kept the lead in double digits. With 2:56 remaining Syracuse led by 11, 70-59.

Just 1:29 later, though, the lead dwindled down to four and PC was within striking range.

‘Basketball is a game of runs,’ Morrow said. ‘We knew that they were going to make a run, and hopefully we were the better team that could stop them during their run and lock down defensively.’

The Orange ultimately made the key play on defense, forcing Chelsea Marandola out of bounds with 56 seconds left. The win made Jones and fellow senior Lina Lisnere victors in likely their last regular season game inside the Carrier Dome. Jones had 16 points and 10 rebounds.

While it may not have been the prettiest of wins, the team will certainly take it. After plenty of postgame interviews about losing and slipping down the Big East ladder, the head coach of the Orange finally could be happy inside his own arena.

‘We want to be a program that wins games and has wining seasons,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘So I think that, overall, this game is a lot of us as far as winning a game, guaranteeing us a winning season and hopefully we put a few together and win in the postseason tournaments.’

mrehalt@syr.edu

Published on March 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm