Iasia Hemingway didn’t think she’d get the ball. On the final possession of the first half for Syracuse, the ball is almost always in Erica Morrow’s hands.

But Hemingway had to be ready to receive the baseball pass downcourt from Tasha Harris with 3.6 seconds to play. And even though she bobbled the reception, once she had the ball in her possession, she made her move.

All the way to the hoop, just before the buzzer sounded.

‘It was funny because I actually didn’t expect to get the ball,’ Hemingway said. ‘But I knew we only had three seconds, so I just went to the basket.’

Hemingway’s buzzer-beating layup finished off a 7-0 Syracuse run to end the first half, giving the Orange an eight-point halftime lead that evolved into a 63-47 SU win. Prior to the run, which ran the course of the final three minutes of the half, the Orange and Providence traded baskets for much of the first half. At one point, the score sat at 20-19. But a La’Shay Taft 3-pointer — the first jump shot outside the paint Syracuse made up to that point — ignited the team for the last three minutes.

It was a three-minute firestorm of Syracuse domination that culminated in the final play of the half.

‘It was huge,’ Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘Obviously, we need to make shots, and we try to tell La’Shay to come into the game and be aggressive and shoot the ball.’

Syracuse struggled mightily to put points on the board for the opening 17 minutes of the first half. Eighteen of SU’s first 20 points came from Hemingway and Kayla Alexander, as the rest of the Orange was 0-of-13 from the field.

Once Taft hit that first 3-pointer, the SU offense started to open up. Syracuse went into the half with an air of confidence leading 27-19, and it was a cushion the team would need to sustain blows from Providence in the second half.

At times in the second half, Providence kept pace with the Orange. The Friars cut SU’s lead to three points at two different points early in the half. But the Orange always answered.

The first time, Elashier Hall answered with a 3 — her first points of the game — to put Syracuse up 30-24. That 3-pointer came after SU’s starting guard trio of Hall, Harris and Morrow went scoreless for the first 22:23 of the game.

After Providence closed it to 30-27, Syracuse went on a 20-5 run to pull away and clinch the win for good. Hall and Morrow each knocked down a 3 on that run.

‘There was periods of the game where we were able to battle, going back and forth, and then we had breakdowns,’ Friars head coach Phil Seymore said. ‘I think they wanted it a little bit more.’

Syracuse never had those breakdowns. The Orange didn’t turn the ball over. SU had three turnovers in the first half and eight for the game.

And although those three starting guards didn’t score until the second half, they combined to turn the ball over just twice. Taking care of the ball helped avoid the lapses the Friars endured frequently.

‘It’s one of our better performances not turning the ball over,’ Hillsman said. ‘Had eight turnovers. And they pressed us through the entire game, so I’m very happy with handling pressure and handling the ball.’

On Senior Day, it was a freshman (Taft) and a junior transfer (Hemingway) who started the run to win the game for Syracuse. The Orange played against a bottom-rung Big East team in the Friars, but it was still important to win to clinch an above-.500 Big East record.

It was a game won by runs. And Syracuse had most of them.

‘To finish the season off, so far, to win five in a row, get Senior (Day),’ Hillsman said, ‘to get to Connecticut with a winning conference record is really big for us.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on February 27, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr