WBB : Syracuse rides defensive effort to season-opening win over Long Beach State
Elashier Hall vs. Long Beach State
Jody Wynn looked down at the stat sheet and did a double take. One particular statistic was so glaringly one-sided, it didn’t seem possible.
Long Beach State went just 1-of-23 from behind the 3-point line, and the 49ers head coach could only point to Syracuse’s long, physical guards as the reason for her team’s futility from the arc.
‘I think we’re a pretty good shooting team, I just didn’t expect us to go 1-for-23 from the 3-point line,’ Wynn said. ‘I thought if we could knock down a couple shots, that might open up some driving lanes. But they’re long, they’re athletic and they’re big, and they do a really nice job.’
In Syracuse’s season opener against Long Beach State, the Orange executed its new, fast-paced style of defense to near perfection. Syracuse (1-0, 0-0 Big East) limited the 49ers (1-1, 0-0 Big West) looks from the outside and provided a strong presence down low to stifle Long Beach’s scorers to notch a 81-42 blowout victory on Sunday in front of 972 fans inside the Carrier Dome. SU’s new defense led to plenty of offense, and guard Elashier Hall was one of the main beneficiaries, finishing with 20 points, including going 2-of-5 from 3-point range.
From the start of preseason practices, SU head coach Quentin Hillsman has placed a premium on forcing turnovers and simply outplaying opponents with athleticism up and down the court. Against Long Beach State, Syracuse did exactly that. It pressured the 49ers on both ends of the court, before settling back into a 2-3 zone once Long Beach State set its offense.
The Orange forced the 49ers into committing 31 turnovers, 17 of which came off steals. But even though Syracuse forced plenty of turnovers, it didn’t take care of the ball much better, as it had 28 of its own.
Hillsman said after the game that he would like to see SU cut that number in half, at least. But fortunately for the Orange on Sunday, Long Beach State didn’t take advantage. SU scored 35 of its points off the 49ers’ turnovers.
‘We really got into the passing lanes and created some turnovers,’ Hillsman said. ‘We really wanted to play fast. Obviously, when you get 35 points off turnovers, that’s playing fast. Our defense really got a lot of offense for us.’
And that was evident from early in the game.
Syracuse opened up a six-point lead about eight minutes into the first half, when Hall stole the ball away from Sigrid Skorpen, sprinted down the court and coasted for a fast-break layup to put SU up 19-13.
Less than two minutes later, Hall stole the ball once more and broke away for a jumper from just inside the paint to put the Orange up 23-15.
‘It’s just focus. We work on it,’ Hall said. ‘We’ve been working on it from day one, since we got back.’
Aside from wreaking havoc on the perimeter, Syracuse also clogged up the paint to keep the 49ers from getting any good looks down low. Center Kayla Alexander had three steals and two blocks and provided a much more physical presence in the second half after not being much of a force in the first.
Long Beach State only scored six of its 21 second-half points inside the paint.
‘I just got more physical and had a more physical mentality because the first half was not there,’ Alexander said. ‘And so the second half, I had to turn it around.’
Perhaps the most significant consequence of the new defensive system is that it takes less for the players to get winded than if they were simply settling immediately into a zone.
Less than two minutes into the second half, Alexander made a second-chance layup after missing her first attempt, and Hillsman stood in front of the bench yelling at her to get back to the other end to defend.
Alexander wasn’t the only one feeling the effects. After the game, Hall and guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas admitted to getting winded quicker as well.
‘It’s more up and down. I don’t know about fun,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘It’s more running, more motion. It’s a faster pace.’
The faster pace is the key to what could be a very formidable Syracuse defense. In his first opportunity to see the Orange implement the system in an actual game, Hillsman saw exactly what he wanted to see.
‘We just changed our style of play,’ Hillsman said. ‘We know we have the athletes to get up and down the floor and run and get in the passing lanes and be a little bit more aggressive on defense. I was really happy with the effort.’
Published on November 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman
