Racked by nerves, Marianna Freeman rolled her eyes skyward toward the scoreboard above Manley Field House’s court. Her Syracuse women’s basketball team, which minutes earlier appeared to be cruising past Pittsburgh and into a spot in the Big East tournament, was now reeling.

A 15-point second-half lead shrunk to nine. Then six. Now two. All Freeman could do was peer at the scoreboard, hoping the clock would tick faster than Pitt’s score, which was skyrocketing like a pinball-machine total.

Afterward, Freeman insisted she never worried about the Orangewomen being in control. While the 798 fans may not have shared that feeling, the outcome, a 71-61 Syracuse win on Saturday, backed up Freeman’s relaxed stance.

With the victory, Syracuse (10-16, 5-10 Big East) clinched a Big East tournament berth.

‘Sometimes, the game slips away from you, but you have to learn to come back and try to regain control,’ said SU forward April Jean, who scored a team-high 20 points. ‘I felt pretty much that we had control of the game. They would have to do a lot to take the game away from us. We came out with the mind-set that we were going to win.’

At times, the Orangewomen displayed more intensity than they had all year. With the tournament berth at stake, SU opened the game with a 16-4 run and never trailed Pittsburgh (11-15, 3-12).

‘Making the tournament wasn’t really guaranteed,’ SU point guard Julie McBride said. ‘Everybody had it in the back of their mind.’

Syracuse maintained a comfortable lead and came out of halftime energetic. With 16 minutes remaining, the Orangewomen built their largest lead, 47-32, after Jean swished a 3-pointer, looked to the roof and wailed in satisfaction.

While Syracuse began making mental travel plans for the Big East tournament, Pitt stormed back with a 19-6 run. Laine Selwyn — who scored a game-high 27 and pestered McBride into nine turnovers — initiated the comeback with a 3 and finished it when she picked McBride’s pocket at halfcourt and converted a layup. With 7:40 left, Pitt had cut the score to 53-51.

But the Panthers expended so much energy coming back, they couldn’t overtake the Orangewomen.

‘When you exhaust all that time, you mentally and physically get tired,’ Pitt coach Traci Waites said. ‘We came back, but Syracuse kept fighting. So when we made our run, they were still there.’

After surviving Pitt’s charge, SU regained momentum when Krystalyn Ellerbe drilled a jumper as the shot clock expired, giving SU a 62-55 lead with 3:35 left. Syracuse then salted the game away with a Rochelle Coleman 3-pointer and four consecutive free throws.

‘In the second half, it was a little nip-and-tuck,’ Freeman said. ‘We played very heady, made shots and free throws down the stretch that we needed to make.’

The Orangewomen built their lead by dominating the post on both ends of the floor. Syracuse outscored Pitt, 30-18, in the paint, with Jean as the main contributor.

‘I felt that I owed my team a great game,’ Jean said. ‘I’ve made a few errors that I shouldn’t have made that cost my team. I felt I had to give them one back.’

Defensively, Jean teamed with Awa Diop to hold Pitt center Mandy Wittenmyer — who came in as Pitt’s second-leading scorer, averaging 11.4 points — to zero points and two shots. Wittenmyer’s performance forced Pitt to turn to a one-dimensional perimeter offense.

‘The only people in double figures were me and Haley (Harguth, who scored 16), and that’s really bad when it’s only your guards scoring,’ Selwyn said. ‘We have to develop an inside presence. Mandy is one of the biggest keys to our team, so that’s definitely a huge factor to us not winning. Mandy only looked to shoot twice. That’s not good.’

Published on March 2, 2003 at 12:00 pm