Syracuse’s season ends with 3-point loss at Bowling Green
Four days after Syracuse earned its first-ever postseason victory, head coach Quentin Hillsman is going back to the drawing board for the 2009-2010 season.
Bowling Green (29-4) ended the Orange’s season with a 72-69 win Sunday at the Anderson Arena in Bowling Green, Ohio in the second round of the NIT.
The loss was the conclusion of a bittersweet season for Hillsman.
‘I’m very happy with our young kids,’ Hillsman said in a phone interview. ‘They really played hard and competed all season. Obviously, we would’ve liked for the season to have ended differently, but to accomplish the things they’ve accomplished, to have the back-to-back appearances in the postseason and record our first postseason win, I’m happy.’
At one point in the first half, it appeared like Syracuse (17-15) would have been the team on the winning end. Implementing his new full-court man defense, Hillsman quickly figured out a way his team could stifle the Falcons’ offense.
Bowling Green forward Lauren Prochaska, the team’s leading scorer and MAC Player of the Year, felt the effects of the added pressure. Prochaska, who averages 17 points per game, was limited to six points in the first half, four of those coming from free throws. But she finished with a game-high 22 points.
The rest of her teammates didn’t fare much better, at first. Syracuse capitalized on the Falcons’ missed attempts, assembling a comfortable 11-point lead with seven minutes left in the half. By intermission, the Falcons had committed seven turnovers and managed to shoot only 33 percent from the 3-point range.
‘I was very impressed with (our defense),’ Hillsman said. ‘Going into the game, we wanted to limit their 3-point attempts and limit their makes. We’re talking about a team that can really shoot the basketball, and we held them to only 12 attempts and they only made four.’
In the second half, Bowling Green found other ways to gradually chip away at the Orange’s lead, most notably by draining free throws. While Jones’ free throw proved to be the highlight of Syracuse’s day, consistent free-throw shooting by the Falcons also factored into the Orange’s demise during the last four minutes.
The Falcons induced SU to commit costly fouls down the stretch, allowing it to crawl back in contention by converting 16 second-half points from the charity stripe.
‘We just fouled too much,’ Hillsman said. ‘At the end of the day it was the free-throw margin. When you end games shooting free throws, that’s a tough way to lose. They got to the line 31 times, and we got to the line 20 times. There were a few fouls down the end that could’ve gone either way, but they got the call, so we got to live with it.’
With four minutes left, Prochaska drilled a 3-pointer to give Bowling Green its first lead of the half. The Orange intentionally fouled the Falcons in the waning minutes, and a rare missed free throw by the squad helped trim the deficit to three points.
But Prochaska’s defensive prowess would be the ultimate difference-maker. The forward blocked two potential game-tying 3-point attempts by SU guards Tasha Harris and Erica Morrow in the last five seconds that sealed the victory for the Falcons.
The loss also ended the two-year career of forward Chandrea Jones, who scored her 1,000th point Sunday, becoming the fastest SU player to do so.
”Chand’ has meant everything to this program,’ Hillsman said. ‘For the past two years she’s been great for us. Of course, we wished she could continue to play, but you know, at some point it has to come to an end. She has a lot of basketball left for her at the pro level.’
