With anemic shooting from the outside and arguably its most reliable offensive threat under the weather and struggling to stay on the floor, Syracuse had to find another way to score.

So the Orange turned to its one of its few remaining options to beat an inferior team in Coppin State, and pounded the offensive glass to get as many second-chance opportunities as possible.

’63 to 42 is a wide margin,’ Carmen Tyson-Thomas said of SU’s rebounding edge. ‘We did what we had to do today on the glass. I think when we do that, we really do have a better outcome. It’s very good for us. That’s what we do, we’re a rebounding team.’

Syracuse finished the game with 63 total rebounds, including 33 on the offensive end, to help it overcome its offensive struggles and get a 56-50 win over Coppin State. The 33 offensive boards led to 29 second-chance points, one of few bright spots in an otherwise unimpressive performance. The Eagles finished with 42 total rebounds, 17 of which were offensive and only had 10 second-chance points after being handily defeated on the glass.

Not much else went right for the Orange in a game where a stronger opponent would have likely dealt SU a loss, based on the way it played Saturday. Syracuse turned the ball over 27 times, shot 17-for-70 from the field and went 2-for-14 from beyond the arc.

Head coach Quentin Hillsman said after the game that the offensive rebounds and put-back shots are what aided Syracuse on the way to a win.

‘Seventeen-of-70, that’s an ugly number,’ Hillsman said. ‘It becomes huge. Obviously, we had 33 offensive rebounds and it probably should’ve been 43 the way we shot the ball.’

Adding insult to injury, junior center Kayla Alexander the Orange’s best offensive threat was feeling ill and could only manage a limited number of minutes on the floor. In her place, though, Shakeya Leary stepped in with an admirable performance, scoring 14 points and getting nine rebounds. So even without Alexander, SU wasn’t completely stripped of its inside play.

Leary said she didn’t feel any extra pressure in trying to provide the same type of presence that Alexander does.

‘It’s no pressure,’ Leary said. ‘She always keeps me motivated. Today, she was telling me just to keep going out there because she was sick. With her words of encouragement, it was pretty helpful tonight.’

In a game where Alexander nearly committed as many turnovers (5) as she had points (6), Leary’s strong performance in the low post was crucial. Leary was tied for second on the team with four offensive boards.

Syracuse built an early lead off its offensive rebounding. Guard Elashier Hall missed a layup a little over five minutes into the game, but forward Iasia Hemingway scored the put-back attempt to put SU up 8-7.

Less than a minute later, after the Eagles retook the lead, guard La’Shay Taft had a 3-point shot clank off the rim and into the hands of forward Troya Berry who made the subsequent layup to get SU the 10-9 lead.

Early on in the game, it was clear this was the one area where the Orange could beat Coppin State.

‘I’m very happy with our offensive rebounding,’ Hillsman said. ‘That was all effort.’

The Orange is one of the top teams in the nation in rebounding, and right now, it’s the only part of Syracuse’s game that hasn’t take a hit. The press Hillsman implemented at the start of the season has begun to falter. Syracuse’s guards are watching their shots bounce off the rim far more often than they fall through the net.

For however long those woes continue, offensive rebounding could be what keeps Syracuse in games.

Against Coppin State, that was the only place where SU showed any superiority. And really, it had no other way to score effectively.

‘I really think that today in the post that it really worked out well for us,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘We did what we were supposed to do in the paint. We did get second-chance opportunities.’

cjiseman@syr.edu

Published on December 10, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Chris: cjiseman@syr.edu | @chris_iseman