Desiree Elmore sprung up from her seat on the bench, knowing what came next.

The moment Gabrielle Cooper’s 3 from the right wing kissed the net, the Carrier Dome exploded. Elmore kicked up her left leg and swung her right fist down simultaneously, then bounced her way to teammates as SU head coach Quentin Hillsman called a timeout.

“Gabby hit a big shot and I took the timeout and I told them,” Hillsman said after the game, “two stops, two buckets, that’s it. … There wasn’t enough possessions for us to lose unless we imploded.”

After the game, though, Cooper sat and faced the media, looking subdued as Tiana Mangakahia answered questions about becoming the Atlantic Coast Conference single-season assist leader. When questioned about the shot, Cooper demurred.

“It felt good,” Cooper said, looking down, grinning. “Just another shot.”

But it wasn’t “just another shot.” Cooper’s 3 with 2:10 left in the game gave Syracuse (22-7, 10-6 ACC) the breathing room it never had for the previous 18 minutes of the second half, and put the Orange in position to top an inferior Boston College team (7-22, 2-14), 69-63, on Sunday in the Carrier Dome. Despite rolling out to a moderate lead early in the game, SU let BC scratch and claw its way back into the game, and both squads entered the fourth quarter knotted at 45. Still, Syracuse downed the Eagles for the ninth-straight time.

“It was a tough game for us,” Hillsman said. “We didn’t create enough margins. To win games comfortably, you have to create margins.”

In the teams’ first meeting this season on Jan. 28, Syracuse cruised into halftime with a 14-point cushion, and by the end of the third quarter, the Orange led by 22. SU finished off the Eagles behind 25 points from Digna Strautmane and 19 more from Mangakahia.

The Eagles offense floundered that day, taking 20 fewer shots than Syracuse and making only four 3s.

On Sunday, the Orange had no such offensive dominance, taking only seven more shots than the Eagles, and giving up 10 made 3s (seven of which came from Taylor Ortlepp).

Syracuse, a team that averaged 73.9 points per game prior to Sunday, struggled to gain the separation it needed from a Boston College side that averaged 57.8.

“I never thought this game would be easy,” Hillsman said. “… (BC) did a good job of making shots.”

Max Freund | Staff Photographer

The win comes with extra importance, as it takes SU to 10 wins in the ACC and caps off a streak of five-straight victories to end the season. After then-No. 4 Louisville came and beat Syracuse on Feb. 4, the Orange was under .500 in ACC play for the first time since losing two straight road games in the middle of January. With a 5-6 conference record at that point, head coach Quentin Hillsman’s directive was clear.

“We understand that these last five games we have,” Hillsman said on Feb. 4, “I think, are very urgent.”

SU didn’t look urgent at times against the Eagles on Sunday. Leading 29-20 with fewer than five minutes to play in the first half, the Orange was in position to keep the pressure on and put an inferior BC team away before halftime, but it didn’t.

Instead, SU struggled to get open looks and turned the ball over trying to run its half-court offense. In response, BC gashed SU for two fastbreak layups and set up sharpshooter Milan Bolden-Morris for open looks from the top of the key.

After swinging the ball around the arc, a BC wing drove, collapsing the defense and freeing Bolden-Morris for wide open looks from straight away. She knocked down two-straight 3s to cap off a 10-0 Boston College run that put the Eagles ahead, 30-29, with just more than two minutes until halftime.

The third quarter was much of the same. Syracuse opened on a 7-0 run to stretch its lead to nine. But after seven more minutes of back-and-forth play, Boston College had come back, and an Ortlepp 3 with 52 seconds left in the third quarter sent both teams to the final stanza with 45 points on the board.

“We played a little sloppy this game,” Miranda Drummond said.

In the final frame, both teams traded blows. Ortlepp or Bolden-Morris would splash a 3, only to be answered by Cooper on the other end. When a Georgia Pineau jumper brought BC within one, SU knew it needed to find a dagger, and quick.

Mangakahia brought the ball down the court, took a hop step and fired the ball down to Amaya Finklea-Guity, who turned and missed a lefty layup. But Drummond had sprinted in from the wing and snatched the ball from two would-be BC rebounders.

Drummond broke toward the sideline, curled right, and hit Cooper five feet behind the 3-point line, halfway between the wing and the top of the arc.

Cooper made no mistake, and SU had the game in hand.

Published on February 25, 2018 at 4:08 pm

Contact Andrew: aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham