One play by Carmen Tyson-Thomas embodied the change in the Syracuse women’s basketball team’s mentality. It was the difference between a hard-fought, three-point win over Northeastern and a 41-point blowout over Cornell.

Near the end of the first half, Tyson-Thomas lunged after a tipped pass along the sideline. Unable to control it, she went diving into the first row of seats to save it. She kept the ball in play, but it went right into the arms of Cornell’s Allie Munson.

Tyson-Thomas jumped up and sprinted back toward the SU basket. She leaped, yelled and emphatically blocked what appeared to be an easy layup for the Big Red’s Spencer Lane. The SU bench erupted.

‘It was just a hustle play,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘I saved it, and then I just rotated on the backside. … And I whammed that thing out of bounds.’

Though Tyson-Thomas’ rejection was the highlight, her aggression on the defensive end was matched by her teammates. After a game in which the Orange gave up 14 3-pointers to Northeastern, the Syracuse defense buckled down against Cornell. SU’s active hands forced 26 Big Red turnovers — 18 of which were steals — on the way to an 86-45 lashing of a team picked to finish second-to-last in the Ivy League.

Syracuse’s defensive adjustments came after a game in which it gave up countless open looks to Northeastern’s perimeter players. Huskies guard Rachael Pecota poured in seven 3-pointers by herself in the Orange’s comeback win on Friday.

Disappointed with the way his team played in the half-court defense and the full-court press, SU head coach Quentin Hillsman sat his players down in practice to go over the scheme in detail prior to Monday’s game.

‘We got back in the gym and just really sat down and talked about what’s important in that pressure defense,’ Hillsman said. ‘We went and we made an adjustment, and the girls really responded to what we asked them to do, so the press was very effective.’

Tyson-Thomas said the biggest adjustment the team made was effort. Instead of watching its opponent win every loose ball and take an uncontested shot, SU brought an added level of energy that wasn’t there last Friday.

This time, the defense forced Cornell into 26 turnovers, which led to 26 points at the other end of the court. During the team’s 34-4 run to pull away from the Big Red, the Orange forced 15 turnovers in a span of 12:13.

‘We weren’t getting the 50-50 balls (against Northeastern),’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘We weren’t diving, we weren’t getting team rebounds, so that’s what we tried to work on more this game. Hustling more, getting on the floor, diving for loose balls.’

And despite a lead of more than 40 points in the second half, that heightened level of intensity didn’t wear off.

Twice on the same possession, freshman Phylesha Bullard knocked a ball out of bounds with fewer than six minutes to play. Minutes later, fellow freshman Rachel Coffey lunged out of bounds underneath the basket and into the media table to save a ball with a 41-point lead and the game already well in hand.

Four players on the SU roster had at least three steals Monday night. And the team’s 18 total steals were equal to the number of points Cornell scored in the second half.

‘We always come to the next game prepared, making up for the stuff that we didn’t do last game,’ junior forward Iasia Hemingway said.

In addition to getting its hands in the passing lane, Syracuse also cut down on the amount of open 3-pointers it allowed. After 61 percent of the points it allowed to Northeastern came from behind the 3-point arc, Syracuse allowed six fewer triples to the Big Red.

The zone was active in the half-court defense, and the full-court press didn’t allow Cornell to score a single fast-break point.

The team corrected some of its mistakes from Friday’s surprisingly tough three-point win, Hillsman said. Now he has to hope the defensive pressure sticks around.

‘Obviously it’s a better night from last time,’ he said. ‘I’m very happy that we took care of some deficiencies.’

mjcohe02@syr.edu

Published on November 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Michael: mjcohe02@syr.edu | @Michael_Cohen13