Quentin Hillsman didn’t know what his team was doing, but he didn’t want to stop it.

With Syracuse trailing by three at halftime, the SU defense shifted to a run-and-jump press. It was something the head coach hadn’t asked his team to do in his nine years of coaching the Orange. But with North Carolina State’s sloppy ball-handling and Syracuse needing a change of pace, Hillsman let the press go and it worked to the tune of a 23-0 SU run.

“I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing that, and I’ll be good,’” Hillsman said. “I had no idea what they were doing on the front of their press. I can’t take credit for that 23-0 run. That’s all them.”

Syracuse doubled up the Wolfpack in the second half and turned a halftime deficit into an inevitable blowout win in a matter of nine minutes. The No. 23 Orange (15-5, 5-2 Atlantic Coast) held on for its fifth straight win, defeating N.C. State (12-8, 3-4) 66-49 on Sunday in the Carrier Dome in front of 1,300.

Alexis Peterson — who finished with 27 points, five rebounds and four assists — keyed the run with seven points and three assists. But it was the defense that forced four turnovers during the stretch that put the stamp on another game-defining run.

“I think we just picked up our energy, our intensity,” Peterson said. “We started getting stops and we started making some baskets. It kind of turned us over and got us excited.”

Peterson said the team started matching defensively in the press, which helped speed it up.

With 11 minutes to go in the game, Cornelia Fondren stole a pass from Miah Spencer, tossed to Peterson from her knees, who in turn whipped it to a wide-open Taylor Ford for an easy layup.

After N.C. State inbounded the ball, the press defense hurriedly forced a 10-second violation in the backcourt. The Orange players clapped at half court, with Peterson high-fiving every one of her teammates before shouting, “Let’s go.”

Syracuse was up 17, and had just bookended its longest scoring run of the season.

“I think in the first half, we didn’t play with our energy,” Hillsman said. “In the second half, I think that we came out and we rectified that early. Anything tough we were going to get it. Anything physical, we were going to take care of.”

Hillsman said that he didn’t think his team got to the loose balls, and as a result, it was struggling to score in its transition offense.

But in the second half, everything changed. A 24.1-percent shooting half turned into 52 percent after the break. Defensively, the Orange held N.C. State to 20.7 percent shooting in a 20-point second half.

Ford, who scored five of her six points and collected all four of her rebounds in the second half, said it’s the little things that generate the big runs.

“It’s just an instinct,” Ford said. “If I’m not scoring, I’m always trying to do other things.”

Last season, a nine-point SU lead with nine minutes to play at N.C. State turned into a six-point loss in its ACC opener. When the two had a rematch in the conference tournament, a 25-1 Wolfpack run in the second half eliminated the Orange.

When SU was presented with a similar precarious lead on Sunday, it ran with it instead of wilting. The team was reminded of those losses by Hillsman during a huddle in the second half. This time the defense stood pat, and with it, the offense followed.

“We did take pride in putting our feet on the ground and holding it,” Hillsman said. “It felt good for us to finally buckle down and not let them make a run and come back and beat us.”

Published on January 25, 2015 at 7:01 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3