Quentin Hillsman walked out with a tense smile on his face as point guard Alexis Peterson charged excitedly to the bench. Peterson had just scored a coast-to-coast layup to put Syracuse up three with 12:36 left to play.

As she got to the bench, the two chest-bumped and Hillsman, the SU head coach, shouted words of encouragement back to the player that had led Syracuse all night.

“She told me, ‘We’re not losing this game,’” Hillsman said. “I thought that was it … she was doing the talking. I think that was the turning point emotionally in that game. She came to the sideline with a lot of fire.”

Eighth-seeded Syracuse (22-9, 11-5 Atlantic Coast) led most of the way throughout its 72-69 win over No. 9-seed Nebraska (21-11, 10-8 Big Ten) on Friday night in Columbia, South Carolina, but the lead never grew to more than six. Peterson scored 24 points and Cornelia Fondren added a career-high 18 points, and the Orange overcame a poor shooting night with with 18 offensive rebounds and 19 forced turnovers.

It was the second-ever NCAA tournament win for Syracuse — it defeated Chattanooga in the first round last season — and it earned the Orange a rematch with top-seeded South Carolina (31-2, 15-1 Southeastern) on Sunday. The last time the two teams met in November, Syracuse gave up a 10-point lead late in the second half en route to a 67-63 loss to the then-No. 1 team in the nation.

“Going into this game, we’ve got to play basketball, we’ve got to be ready,” Hillsman said. “We’ve got to do the things we can to be able to handle the situation.”

Fondren carried the offensive load early on, scoring the first four points and finishing with 12 in the first half. In the second, it was Peterson who opened up a four-point lead on a 3 from the top of the key with 17:53 to play.

After the Cornhuskers took a 50-47 lead on two Allie Havers free throws, Syracuse scored six-straight points, culminating in Peterson’s drive down the court.

Down the stretch, the Orange nearly faltered. Up by five points, Briana Day missed a wide-open driving layup with four minutes to play. On the next trip down the court, she missed both of her free throws.

In the mean time, Nebraska scored on four-straight possessions to even the score at 66 with less than a minute to play.

But after Emily Cady missed a free throw that would’ve tied the score with 15 seconds on the clock, Peterson got the rebound and made her final two shots at the line to put Syracuse in position to win.

“The more they were fouling us the more confidence I had we were going to make one,” Hillsman said. “I thought down the stretch we got Petey to the foul line, and she made two free throws. That was huge.”

Syracuse lost one of its top scorers in Diamond Henderson to a torn ACL. The Orange lost in its opening game of the ACC tournament to a Wake Forest team that finished the regular season 2-14 in the conference. It drew a worse seed than it had been expected to pull all season. Yet, still, there is more basketball to be played.

“To get a BCS win in the postseason is tremendous,” Hillsman said. “I thought going into this game it was an opportunity for us to play a great basketball team and we did. They were tremendous tonight … but we came out and beat a BCS basketball team in the tournament and that’s huge for our program.”

Published on March 20, 2015 at 11:11 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3