A 19-point deficit to the worst team in the Big East. That was Syracuse’s predicament Tuesday.

Coming off a pair of key wins last week against Louisville and at St. John’s, the Orange came out flat against Cincinnati. SU’s first field goal didn’t come until a Kayla Alexander bucket with 8:15 left in the first half.

For a team not completely locked into the NCAA tournament, the slow start spelled trouble.

‘Give a lot of credit, they just made some shots,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said in a phone interview after the game. ‘They came out, and they made some late (shot) clock 3s, and we weren’t scoring.

‘I just told them play one possession at a time, stop looking at the score, get stops and get down the court and start scoring the basketball.’

Syracuse closed the gap to eight by halftime and kept the momentum throughout the early moments of the second half, taking a lead with 16:35 remaining. The Orange grabbed the lead for good with 15:38 remaining, although it had to hold on for a nail-biting 55-53 win at Cincinnati on Tuesday in the Fifth Third Arena. Despite the poor showing, SU (20-7, 8-6 Big East) still managed to seize its fourth straight conference win.

It is also the first time SU has put together back-to-back 20-win seasons in school history.

‘Obviously we’re just very happy with our comeback to win the game,’ Hillsman said. ‘In our conference, every game is tough, as you can see by tonight.’

The win didn’t come without a fight from the lowly Bearcats. Cincinnati went on a 12-0 run after Syracuse free throws to start the game, and for most of the first half, the Bearcats dominated the Orange. Cincinnati earned its biggest lead of the game on a Bjonee Reaves 3 that gave the team a 30-11 lead with less than five minutes to play before halftime.

From there, SU rallied. Closing the half on a 13-2 run, Syracuse guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas led the comeback by knocking down three 3-pointers in the final minutes of the first half.

An Iasia Hemingway layup cut the deficit to eight with about a minute to go. It was the first time SU was within single digits in an 11-minute span.

‘Going into halftime, I think we were down by eight, that’s key,’ Hillsman said. ‘We could have been down 20 to 25 at halftime.’

Hillsman said Syracuse pressured Cincinnati’s shooters better in the second half, not even allowing the Bearcats to get off the long-range shots that gave them the lead in the first half. After making 6-of-10 3-pointers in building a lead, Cincinnati attempted just two in the second half. It only made one.

And that made 3-pointer came with five seconds left and a 55-50 Syracuse lead, with the game out of reach.

Still, some of Syracuse’s struggles concerned Hillsman. Syracuse’s starting guard trio of Erica Morrow, Tasha Harris and Elashier Hall struggled mightily on offense, scoring just nine points on 2-of-19 shooting. Morrow made two free throws in the closing seconds to avoid a goose egg in the points column.

‘I don’t think overall they’re playing bad,’ Hillsman said. ‘But I do agree we do need to get some better percentages from them shooting.’

The win means Syracuse will finish at least .500 in regular-season Big East play, as two losses in the final two games would drop SU to 8-8. That’s already a game better than last season’s 7-9 record.

And the Orange has a winnable game Saturday in its last home game against Providence. That win would give SU a winning record, and it would take the team to within one game of the magic 10 Big East wins Hillsman pointed to as the number the Orange needs to make the NCAA tournament.

Currently, ESPN’s women’s basketball bracketologist Charlie Creme has Syracuse as a No. 9 seed.

‘We’re in right now, according to all the bracketology things,’ Hillsman said. ‘So we’re in a good position. All we can do is keep winning.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

 

Published on February 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr