It isn’t even worth the fight for Quentin Hillsman.

Sure, as of Thursday both his team and Jim Boeheim’s men’s squad are 8-0. Sure, each was ranked by one or both of the two major polls after being left out of the Associated Press poll to begin the season. Sure, each squad hasn’t come close to losing a single game thus far. The parallels are there.

Hillsman will tell you time and time again though; you can’t compare the women’s and men’s squads. But perhaps more specifically, he feels you can’t juxtapose him, and Boeheim. That’s where the comparisons end.

‘I think Boeheim is blowing me out in the win department,’ Hillsman said jokingly Thursday. ‘But I’m just very happy for both programs and for our department as a whole, and we’re going to do all we can to have a respectable program and keep winning.’

With two unblemished teams on campus at this point in the season for the first time since 1997, hype surrounding the two programs has reached a new level this early in eachs’ campaign. Heading into this Sunday’s 5 p.m. contest against Dartmouth (1-4) at the Carrier Dome, the women have compiled an 8-0 record thus far. Heading into Thursday’s matchup with No. 10 Florida, the men have also amassed an 8-0 mark.

Consequently, many members of the media and fans alike have decided to lump the two programs together. Hillsman’s squad and Boeheim’s No. 7 ranked group have been thought of almost as a two-headed monster for SU basketball.

But almost as quickly as one reporter tried to boost Hillsman’s confidence Thursday, the head coach immediately shot any notion down. Before Hillsman could compare himself to Boeheim, he brought himself and the members of the media around him back down to earth.

‘No. There is no competition,’ Hillsman simply said.

The numbers thus far this season agree with Hillsman. Boeheim’s team has defeated two top 15 teams, two teams picked to win their conferences in California and North Carolina, handily. No other team the men’s squad has played has come within 15 points.

In contrast, the women’s squad has played eight teams with a combined record of 23-41. None of the eight teams SU played are from a major conference, and only one (Butler 5-3) has a winning record.

SU guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas isn’t letting those numbers get in the way of the teams success thus far though. The freshman feels the team is progressing just as they were supposed to against the schedule that was put in front of them — just like the men’s team.

‘We’re all playing together and we’re working hard, practice is really paying off,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘It makes me feel real good because I wanted to come to a big program like this. And we’re working hard, and we’re earning it, so we deserve it.’

With only four more games in front of Tyson-Thomas and the rest of the team before Big East play begins, there is a chance for the team to set it self apart further. Four wins will give the program its first undefeated mark before Big East play in school history. And three more victories will set the school record for its longest unbeaten streak to start a season.

And for Hillsman’s second leading scorer, Erica Morrow (15.8), those are the statistics that are important. To the junior, once all of the babble about comparing Boeheim’s squad and Hillsman’s dies down, that’s when the team will truly know where it stands.

For Morrow, there is no point in comparing Wes Johnson to Nicole Michael, or Brandon Triche to herself.

Or even Boeheim to Hillsman. Whether Hillsman feels the correlation is justified or not.

‘Every game is pressure, regardless of whether it’s a record or not’ Morrow said. ‘We still want to go 11-0, 12-0, 13-0. We want to keep winning and not lose.’

aolivero@syr.edu

— asst. sports editor Andrew L. John contributed reporting to this story

Published on December 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm