Abby Grant was rusty. She missed her first shot. Then the second. But as former Syracuse assistant coach Kelley Gibson kept watching, Grant, then in high school, showed the collegiate potential she had from 3-point land, hitting her next four in a row.

“Don’t panic when you first see her, the first couple times she shoots the ball,” Hillsman recalled Gibson saying after she watched Grant on a recruiting trip. “She’ll get it going.”

When the Orange played in Europe in August, Grant was rusty again, missing her first few shots. But the incoming freshman regained the confidence she had in high school and proved to her new teammates that she could eventually succeed senior Brianna Butler as SU’s primary 3-point option.

And it’s that same trigger-happy approach that Grant has brought into No. 19 Syracuse’s (5-2) young season. Grant was sick for the Orange’s most recent game but has racked up a 39.3 percent field-goal percentage from beyond the arc and only attempted one 2-pointer this season. Grant’s averaging under eight minutes per game, but her 3-point efficiency has led her to rank second in the Atlantic Coast Conference in points per 40 minutes, according to WBBState.com.

“Her coming in as a freshman hitting shots four or five steps behind the 3-point line and knocking them down, even contested ones,” Butler said of how Grant impressed teammates in preseason pick-up games. “I definitely knew from that standpoint she was going to come in and be big for us.”

Hillsman said there shouldn’t be any learning curve for Grant. Three-point shooting doesn’t require any learned skills. She simply has to do the same thing she did in high school. Catch the ball and shoot the ball.

It’s the same mentality that he preaches to Butler, a player who Grant saw bits of herself in during the recruiting process.

“(Hillsman) tells me everyday, ‘Shoot the ball, shoot the ball,’” Grant said. “He’s kind of drilled it in me.”

Against Morgan State on Nov. 23, Hillsman lifted three fingers into the air and marched up and down the Syracuse sideline whenever Grant hit a 3. His reaction to her makes were far more boisterous than to anyone else’s.

Against Fordham on Nov. 28, Grant’s back-to-back 3s in the third quarter pushed the Orange’s lead to nine en route to a 22-point win and a season-high nine points.

“I just tell her to run to where she feels comfortable shooting the ball,” Hillsman said. “… Her learning curve might be having a coach that says every time you touch the ball, you have to shoot it.”

Now that Butler, Syracuse’s all-time leader in 3-pointers, has seen Grant’s potential manifest in game situations, she said she thinks Grant will eventually break her record. In Butler’s first seven games, she went 8-of-27 from deep, three less makes and only one fewer attempt than Grant.

In high school, Grant’s job was the same as it is now and it’s not an accident that she’s been SU’s most productive freshman this season.

“She’s just a phenomenal shooter,” Hillsman said. “She creates problems and she definitely creates space so for us, she’s been awesome.”

Published on December 9, 2015 at 12:15 am

Contact Paul: pmschwed@syr.edu | @pschweds