WBB : Stingy defense helps SU overcame sloppy offensive effort
The demanding eight-game stretch had taken its toll on Quentin Hillsman and the Syracuse women’s basketball team. So earlier this week, the Syracuse coach decided to give his team the rest of the week off to recharge its batteries.
One problem. The jolt didn’t translate to offensive production during the Orange’s game against Delaware State. The Lady Hornets held Syracuse to 56 points, the lowest point total SU has posted all season. Still, the subtle drop in statistics was negated by the team’s strong defensive stand.
‘My goal was to win this game by one point,’ Hillsman said. ‘I just wanted to win it. I didn’t care how we won it. I knew there was a chance that we wouldn’t look impressive. But when I was tired, I knew they were tired. So I knew we had to take some time off and recharge our batteries.’
And the week-long breather worked to a certain extent. The Orange exceeded Hillsman’s pre-game goal, winning by a 19-point margin in its 56-37 rout of the Lady Hornets. But most of the praise should be credited to Syracuse’s defense.
Early on, Hillsman implemented a press defense to coerce Lady Hornets’ guards to commit turnovers in the backcourt. And it worked to precision. Each time an opposing player touched the ball, there were at least two Orange players flailing a hand in its opponent’s face.
In the first half, Syracuse limited the Lady Hornets to only four field goals and a 16.7 shooting percentage from the field. SU’s stingy defense also held the Lady Hornets scoreless for the last five minutes of the first half. Going into halftime, SU led 32-14 and appeared to have already sealed the game.
‘I thought it was a really good team effort,’ Hillsman said. ‘We were stepping in and taking charges. Every time they went to the basket, we were getting body-to-body trying to take charges. Nobody wants to get three offensive fouls, so they started playing outside the paint and that was our goal.’
But the beginning of the second half was a different story. Lady Hornets’ guard Selena Galloway scored five quick points in the first two minutes in an attempt to spark a Delaware State comeback.
Thinking the game had already been settled, the Orange seemed to succumb to complacency. Senior guard Chandrea Jones committed several, early turnovers on offense which came back to haunt her on the defensive end.
‘They beat us in transition a couple times,’ Hillsman said. ‘That was the big thing. They beat us down the floor. They started penetrating on us and kicking out while our defense was scrambling off the second pass, that got us in a little bit of trouble.’
Seven minutes later, the Lady Hornets had nearly doubled their entire first half output, and in the process trimmed the deficit to 11 points. With the offense also sputtering, Hillsman called a timeout to shift to a defensive-oriented lineup, subbing in freshman forward Troya Berry and junior forward Nicole Michael.
A few minutes into her stint, Berry claimed a quick steal which restored life and momentum back to the defense. Ultimately, it led to transition points on the offensive end.
Still, sophomore guard Tasha Harris, who accounted for two of SU’s 13 steals, made it clear that she didn’t want the lackadaisical play to be a recurring issue.
‘We just have to play and be intense for 40 minutes,’ Harris said. ‘We just can’t know we have 20 and get comfortable. We have to work on keeping our intensity throughout the whole game.’
Despite its momentary struggles, the Orange managed to leave the Carrier Dome with a much-needed victory. Still, Hillsman couldn’t help but get a little greedy when reminiscing about the team’s potent defense during his post-game press conference.
‘Holding a team to 37 points, I don’t care who you’re playing, that’s a remarkable defensive job,’ Hillsman said. ‘I thought that our zone was good. But if you take away four or five times when they drove baseline on us, they could be in the twenties easily.
