Delaware State took the full 40 minutes to score more points than Syracuse’s Carmen Tyson-Thomas did in 17.

The sophomore guard scored. She rebounded. She played tight defense. She did everything in the first half for SU.

Her maximum effort in the first half allowed for her and the rest of the Orange’s first team to have a breather in the second half. Syracuse turned the game into a laugher.

‘Personally, I was all over the place, yeah,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘But our team, we were all really hustling.’

And until Delaware State hit a layup with 28 seconds to go, Tyson-Thomas was tied with the entire Hornets team at 15. Tyson-Thomas finished with 15 points, nine rebounds and two steals as SU blew away Delaware State, 87-17.

Despite an abbreviated day of work for the sophomore, who came into Saturday averaging 24 minutes per game, Tyson-Thomas put up big numbers.

‘Carmen’s a good player, so nothing surprises me when she does this,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘She’s definitely one of our better players on the team, and she plays very hard. She’s very athletic on the boards, she can do everything on the floor.’

At times, it was easy. Tyson-Thomas caught an inbounds pass from Tasha Harris right under the hoop and for a quick layup early. But it was the other times, the hustle plays, when Tyson-Thomas made her mark.

She slashed under the hoop to rebound a Troya Berry miss and got to the line after getting fouled on the putback. After a Phylesha Bullard miss, Tyson-Thomas was there to swarm the DSU rebounder, along with Bullard and Elashier Hall. Tyson-Thomas came out with the ball and took it in for another layup.

The sophomore finished a rebound short of her fourth double-double of the season.

‘We were kind of all over the place and kind of rebounding, crashing,’ Tyson-Thomas said.

Rebounding is the key to Tyson-Thomas’ success. Not a great shooter from 3-point range (22 percent on the season) or from anywhere on the floor (37 percent), Tyson-Thomas relies on getting offensive rebounds and putbacks to score her points. Despite being only 5-foot-9, Tyson-Thomas is SU’s leading rebounder, averaging two more rebounds per game than Kayla Alexander, the Orange’s 6-foot-4 center.

The six inches in height difference mean nothing to Tyson-Thomas. She averages almost four rebounds per game on the offensive glass and had six Saturday.

‘It gets her going,’ SU guard Erica Morrow said of Tyson-Thomas’ rebounding. ‘Carmen’s a little weird, a little different, so different things get her going. Not necessarily scoring, but getting rebounds, getting hustle plays.’

Alexander and Tyson-Thomas work together on the glass. In the second half Saturday, when a rebound was just out of the center’s reach, Alexander used her height to tip the ball back in the air. Somehow, Tyson-Thomas leapt through and ripped the board down on its second time falling.

On the ensuing SU possession, after a Hall miss, the ball was tipped around until it seemed to land in a Delaware State player’s possession. But Tyson-Thomas tipped the ball away from her and took it, making a one-handed layup from the baseline.

‘I can’t always get all the boards, and Carmen is a huge rebounder,’ Alexander said. ‘It’s good to have her in the game, get the easy buckets.’

Late in the first half, Tyson-Thomas held the ball at the top of the key. She fed it down low to Shakeya Leary, but the guard wasn’t done with the play. Tyson-Thomas swooped around her defender, and Leary gave it right back as Tyson-Thomas cut inside to receive the pass. She went up, made the basket despite a foul, and then sank the free throw to complete the 3-point play.

Right after that, she was subbed out. Her right hand was bleeding from the contact on the foul. And less than two minutes later, she was back on the court, right hand bandaged but her motor still at full speed.

‘That was just a little cut, that was nothing,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘But effort, we all had the same amount of effort. We’re all very fiery, all over the place, and we just kept it going.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on December 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr