Syracuse women’s basketball hopes to take momentum from first NIT win to Bowling Green
After watching his team go from NCAA-bound the previous season to NIT participants this year, Quentin Hillsman had time to reflect on his program’s first-ever postseason win Wednesday night.
After trashing Canisius 90-65 in the opening round of the tournament, the Syracuse women’s basketball head coach was asked if the win being in the NIT took away from the victory at all.
‘Not at all,’ Hillsman said. ‘It’s a postseason win so it’s a great win for us. I’ll take any type of postseason tournament they have. I don’t care, I like to win.’
With the first postseason win in program history, Syracuse now must look to stave off elimination one more time as the Orange heads to Bowling Green at 2 p.m. Sunday. Bowling Green (28-4) lost in Mid-American Conference finals to Ball State and only fell short in one home game all season.
‘We were excited to get our game going,’ senior guard Chandrea Jones said. ‘We just look forward to doing it Sunday and seeing what comes out of it.’
Coming into Wednesday night’s contest against Canisius, the Orange had been 0-4 in postseason play, so just getting out of the first round was a foreign thought to the team. But the Orange sure didn’t look like a team without a postseason victory on Wednesday.
The team dominated the game from halfway through the first half to the end of the game. Syracuse played one of its crispest games of its season, and scored 90 points, something Syracuse hadn’t done since Dec. 14, 2008, against Niagara.
While the game became a laugher by the end, the importance of getting that first victory in the postseason under the team’s belt was not far from the mind of Hillsman.
‘More than anything, I don’t want to let the community down. Everyone works hard for us,’ Hillsman said. ‘When we advance, they advance. When they get a ring, we get a ring. It’s important. We do it all for our fans, our staff, our community, for the people who work hard for us. I don’t want to let them down. We said let’s get our first-ever postseason win and it was. It was a great win for us.’
The win also epitomized the Orange’s attempt to forget about the regular-season woes and start with a fresh slate. Syracuse lost 13 of its last 18 games, including a second straight Big East first-round loss.
With an opportunity to start anew, the players took advantage of their second chance, perhaps no one better than Erica Morrow and Jones, who combined for 51 points. The duo steadied the Orange and provided all the offense SU would need.
‘To be still playing on Sunday is an amazing accomplishment for the team,’ Morrow said. ‘We weren’t as happy as we wanted to be with the season, but we’re still playing and we’re 1-0 now and we’re going to keep on from here.’
The squad will have to keep up the good play to take out Bowling Green, the regular-season Mid-American Conference champion who lost only four games all season. Both the players and the coaches acknowledged after the game that they knew that Bowling Green won plenty of games.
While Syracuse did better on the road (3-5) than at home (2-6) during the Big East portion of its season, trying to be the second team to win a road game against the Falcons.
‘They’re a very good team and (Bowling Green head coach) Curt (Miller) does a good job,’ Hillsman said. ‘He runs a good team. I saw him last year run a lot of ball screen stuff and stuff that we have to guard so they’re going to get us into situations where we’ll have some matchups with guarding the ball.’
Syracuse only had one practice day before its matchup against Canisius, and will be rewarded with three of such for its matchup in the second round of the NIT. Any anxiety of playing poorly down the stretch and not having enough time to practice did not come to fruition.
Instead, the Orange played one of its best basketball games of the season and appears ready for its second-round game. The coach even looks like he’s having fun now. After a season filled with struggles, Hillsman joked on the court Wednesday night with referees and finally found some time to smile.
‘I just want to have fun and I’m very happy when they’re happy and I’m happy when they’re successful,’ Hillsman said. ‘Just as a staff and team, we’re trying to loosen up and have fun in the basketball games.’
