Rachel Pearson caught the ball on the right wing and smoothly tossed in a 3-pointer. On the next possession, she caught it on the left wing and did the same. She was on fire and Syracuse’s defense couldn’t do anything to stop her.

Pearson’s fifth 3-pointer forced Orange head coach Quentin Hillsman to call timeout as SU faced its largest deficit of the game.

“We just kept losing her,” Hillsman said.

Pearson nailed five assisted 3s for 15 points — the same amount that Drexel led Syracuse by less than 13 minutes into the game.

SU switched to man-to-man on its first defensive possession after the timeout. On its second, Cornelia Fondren intercepted Pearson’s inbounds pass and began a sequence that ended with a Syracuse 3.

It was the start of a turnaround that led to a tied game at the half and ultimately an 83-62 Syracuse (8-3) win over Drexel (4-7) on Tuesday night in the Carrier Dome. The switch to man-to-man allowed the Orange to keep a closer eye on Pearson, who finished with 22 points on 6-of-9 3-pointers, after finding the pockets along the perimeter of SU’s 2-3 zone.

“We realized we couldn’t lose those shooters, especially (Pearson) because she was hot from the beginning,” guard Brittney Sykes said.

Pearson and Jessica Pellechio, who added two first-half 3s of her own, were part of Syracuse’s gameplan and the Orange wasn’t caught off guard, which is what puzzled Hillsman, he said.

At halftime, 30 of the Dragons’ 34 points were off 3s. A team that averaged 35 percent from beyond the arc entering Tuesday made 58.8 percent in the first 20 minutes.

But in the last 20 minutes, Drexel made just three shots from beyond the arc.

As the game progressed, voices from the sideline screamed “shooter” as the ball flew toward Pearson’s hands. When she’d catch it, Syracuse’s guards were quicker to pressure her. And after starting the game 5-of-27 from the field, the Orange started making baskets, which set up its full-court man press.

The Dragons, who ranked seventh in the country in fewest turnovers with 11.9 per game, committed eight in the last seven minutes of the half, contributing to SU’s 12 first-half points off turnovers.

“(Man-to-man) really distracted them because they couldn’t just spot up and shoot 3s,” junior guard Alexis Peterson said. “They had to beat us in other ways, they had to beat us off the bounce and that’s something they weren’t really strong at.”

With 41 seconds left in the second quarter and Syracuse down by three, Maggie Morrison stole the ball in the frontcourt off the press. She passed it to Sykes who scored a layup. On the ensuing inbounds, Sykes stole it and Peterson got fouled at the basket.

Hillsman pumped his fist and walked onto the court. The Syracuse bench that was left deflated after every missed field goal early on was now yelling. Peterson’s made foul shot tied the game at 34, finishing a thunderous 21-6 run since Hillsman’s timeout seven minutes earlier.

The man-to-man pressure continued in the second half combining the full-court press and occasional mixes of the traditional 2-3 zone and matchup-man. Drexel only made three second-half 3s. Pearson didn’t have any of them.

Thirteen 3s was still the most Syracuse gave up in a game this season. Its 62 points allowed were only surpassed once and that was against then-No. 5 Maryland. The Orange survived on Tuesday, but it wasn’t going to until it defended the perimeter.

“We do a lot of different things on defense,” Hillsman said. “We’re going to do whatever we can to win the basketball game.”

Published on December 29, 2015 at 11:05 pm

Contact Paul: pmschwed@syr.edu | @pschweds