On the sidelines midway through the second half, Tasha Harris provided a gesture much to the amusement of her teammates. It was a rowdy expression that followed a simple Kayla Alexander offensive rebound and basket.

The starting point guard stood up, flexed her biceps, and belted, ‘We’re strong! We’re strong!’

While nursing an insurmountable lead, the snapshot of the SU bench might have seemed out of place. But Harris’ message was clear: her squad was toying with the Seahawks on the glass.

And having fun doing it.

On the night, Syracuse out-rebounded the Seahawks, 55-29, in a prevailing effort on the boards. But even more impressive was the 26 offensive rebounds Syracuse hauled in, which were just three fewer than the 29 defensive rebounds it tallied.

‘That’s it,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘We just want to stay after it. We just talk about it every time, ‘Just go every time.’ If you go every time, five or six of them will fall in your lap. That’s what we talk about, going to the glass and trying to make it to the free throw line. Tonight those two things we definitely did.’

For the majority of the game, the Orange actually grabbed more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds. With 10:40 remaining in the second half, and the score at 77-39, Syracuse had 23 offensive rebounds as opposed to 21 defensive rebounds. The Seahawks in comparison, had 20 total rebounds — and just eight on the offensive end.

It was a commanding dominance that Alexander recognized during the game every time she fought from block to block — an effort reinforced when huddling over the postgame statistics with teammates Erica Morrow and Nicole Michael.

‘Us, yeah, we were all going towards the glass,’ Alexander said. ‘We were getting after it.’

Alexander was the obvious lynchpin around the offensive boards for the entirety of the game for the Orange. The freshman center secured five offensive rebounds and six total on the night, while leading the team in scoring with 23 points.

But the attacking of the offensive glass wasn’t limited to just Syracuse’s bigs, as eight players in total accounted for at least four rebounds — everyone from the 5-foot-8 Morrow, to the 6-foot-4 Alexander.

‘That’s what we talk about, everybody but the point guard going,’ Hillsman said. ‘I find that overall when we all go, and we all go aggressively, we have a great chance to win. I’m just very happy with our effort on the boards.’

Despite the numbers, the effort on the glass wasn’t there for the whole contest in Hillsman’s mind though — at the least not for the first 49 seconds of the game.

Less than a minute into the game, Hillsman motioned to his bench as five players furiously removed their warm-up uniforms. Seconds later, an entire new group, including Alexander and fellow freshmen Elashier Hall and Carmen Tyson-Thomas (who led the team in rebounding with nine each), checked into the game.

‘He (Hillsman) told us before the game started, if we come out flat he’s going to have a new five waiting for us,’ Michael said.

With the new five on the floor, Syracuse began to exert its dominance down low. Alexander, Hall, Tyson-Thomas and company all ravaged the glass throughout the game, all the way to that moment where Harris chose to show some muscle.

And with that in mind, following the win and a decisive 26-rebound victory, only one question remained unanswered.

Did Alexander see Harris’ gesture?

‘No,’ Alexander said with a smile. ‘I didn’t see her.’

aolivero@syr.edu

Published on December 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm