What Happened? The Syracuse women’s basketball team suffers regression from last season
Growing up in the streets of southeast Washington, D.C., Quentin Hillsman constantly encountered adverse circumstances. In Hillsman’s neighborhood, nothing could be taken for granted. Crime rates were rampant in the notorious quadrant of the D.C. diamond.
In order to survive his difficult surroundings, Hillsman learned to develop a special characteristic – optimism. At that point, it was all he had.
‘You had to be optimistic when you got off the bus to make it to your house,’ Hillsman said. ‘It’s different there.’
Now, that mindset is being tested. Coming off the best women’s basketball season since 1987-88, the Orange (15-11, 4-9 Big East) has failed to live up to the lofty expectations during the 2008-09 campaign.
Last year, the Orange went 22-9. This year, it has already lost 11 games, including one to a Division II team. Last year, the team went 10-6 in the Big East. This year, it is 4-10 and the loser of seven of the last nine. Last year, Syracuse earned its first ever national ranking. This year, the team’s NCAA Tournament aspirations are hanging by a thread.
Despite returning four starters, Hillsman’s team has regressed. The graduation of key seniors from last year’s tournament squad has hurt this year’s squad, says opposing coaches, Orange players and Hillsman himself. The team lacks dependable rebounding and interior defending. The bench is thin. The arrival of a solid recruiting class has made little difference.
After a 90-79 loss to Notre Dame Tuesday, the Orange most likely needs to run the table in the Big East tournament to make the NCAA Tournament.
With little else left, Hillsman once again finds himself turning to optimism.
‘I embrace the pressure,’ Hillsman said after his team’s 73-72 loss to Georgetown Sunday ‘I embrace the high expectations and the changing culture.’
A few years ago, Hillsman added, years like this, where the team is above .500, would be acceptable. Now, it isn’t. ‘That’s what I wanted when I first came here, to change the culture of winning.’ Hillsman said.
Before Hillsman was promoted to head coach in 2006, the Syracuse’s women’s program had endured losing seasons in 14 of the previous 16 years.
But his quick turnaround only makes this year’s performance shock more. Few expected the Orange to falter. With returning starters Erica Morrow, Chandrea Jones, Nicole Michael and Tasha Harris, SU expected to continue climbing up the conference standings.
At the team’s media day in October, confidence was high.
‘I think we’re ready to handle anything thrown at us,’ Jones said then. ‘I mean, everybody wasn’t expecting us to handle it last year, but we handled a lot. We’ll be alright.’
Hillsman boasted about his recruiting class that included blue-chip JUCO prospect Juanita Ward, All-CNY Player of the Year Tyler Ash and highly touted forward Troya Berry. The heralded recruits were supposed to bolster the bench and replace graduating seniors Fantasia Goodwin and Vaida Sipaviciute.
Instead, for the first half of the year, the bench turned into a major liability. The first glimpse of inconsistency came in November at the Great Alaska Shootout, a tournament which Syracuse was heavily favored to win.
After defeating Jackson State in the first round, the Orange played Division II Alaska-Anchorage in the championship game. And the Syracuse bench never showed up. The backup rotation shot 1-of-16 from the field in the Seawolves’ 58-57 upset of the Orange.
The setbacks snowballed from there.
‘Every time we lose a game, I feel like it’s the end of the world,’ Morrow said. ‘We don’t like to lose, and I’m not really used to losing. No one is used to losing. We’re not used to losing here, and we’re not satisfied with what we’ve done.
South Florida also feasted on Hillsman’s inexperienced bench this year. During a February matchup, which the Bulls won 88-79, USF shut down the Orange’s substitutes, limiting them to nine points off 3-of-14 shooting.
USF head coach Jose Fernandez prepared to take advantage of Syracuse’s shallow reserve pool. Last year, Fernandez’s team split two games with SU.
‘The difference between Syracuse’s team this year and last year is they had some veterans on last year’s team that contributed a lot more for them,’ Fernandez said in a teleconference last Thursday. ‘They also had a lot more coming off their bench than they have this year. They lost Vaida inside, Fantasia, and a couple other role kids that played.
‘Those players made it easier for the younger kids last year to play more freely.’
Tasha Harris agrees with that assessment. Harris, a sophomore point guard, learned from the seasoned veterans, like fellow guard Cintia Johnson, during her freshman year.
‘Vaida and Fanny provided good leadership for us,’ Harris said. ‘It made last year a lot easier. You had people to go to like Cintia, since she played in the Big East three years before me. It’s different this year.’
Goodwin and Sipaviciute supplied more than just leadership. The departed duo gave the Syracuse lineup height – a feature lacking from this year’s roster – and an interior defensive presence that helped the Orange finish seventh in the conference in scoring defense.
Sipaviciute, who stands at 6-foot-4, finished last season as the Big East’s second-leading shot blocker, swatting 52 shots in 31 games. At 6-foot, Goodwin amassed 167 defensive rebounds, the sixth-highest total in the conference.
Since the twosome graduated, the Orange has struggled to recapture the intimidating defensive domination that it once had.
‘They are great players and did a great job for us,’ Harris said. ‘We’re not rebounding as good as we should and used to. We haven’t been defending good. We have to lock down and defend more and just take care of the ball better.’
Currently, Syracuse ranks last in the conference in scoring defense. No.1 Connecticut’s Maya Moore dropped 40 on the team back in January, in the midst of a 54-point rout. No.8 Louisville beat the Orange by 21.
But DePaul head coach Doug Bruno blames Syracuse’s struggles solely on the roster’s inadequacies. The Blue Demons’ coach, whose then-ranked team lost to SU last year, attributes the Orange’s sliding record to the increasing parity in the Big East.
‘What’s so unique about the Big East are the teams that aren’t ranked in the Top 25 are still Top 25 level of competition,’ Bruno said after his team defeated Syracuse 87-79 last week. ‘That’s what we feel. We beat … a Top 25 level team. Syracuse could catch lightning in a bottle right now.’
Fortunately for the Orange, Hillsman has endured these circumstances several times before, so adversity is nothing new to him. He’s learned from the streets.
Despite dropping eight of the team’s last 10 games, the Syracuse coach won’t alter his outlook on the basketball program and plans to continue coaching with optimism. At this point, that’s all the southeast D.C. native can do.
‘I’m going to continue to talk about winning,’ Hillsman said. ‘No one’s going to back me down from saying that I’m here to win championships and that I’m here to win every game. That’s what we’re all about here, and that’s what we’re going to continue to be about.’
