Quentin Hillsman recognized it eight years ago, when he began to take notice of that ninth-grader from Brooklyn.

He saw the talent Erica Morrow displayed on the court that led to her being named a McDonald’s All-American at Murry Bergtraum High School. He saw the intangibles she possessed that make her a natural fit at the point guard position.

‘Her leadership and her maturity,’ Hillsman said when asked what stood out about Morrow back then. ‘Her game was so far advanced at that age that you knew she had a chance to be a very good player.’

Morrow has continued to display those talents throughout her time here at Syracuse. She started for the Orange from the moment she entered the program. She earned Big East All-Freshman team honors and helped the Orange make the NCAA tournament in her first year. She has led the team in steals and finished second on the team in points every season since she arrived.

She has made game-winning shots and game-turning stops. Morrow’s teammates said she has been a leader since she first donned an SU uniform. And this year, her main goal is to lead the Orange back to the NCAA tournament, where Syracuse hasn’t been for the past two years.

‘It’s a time where we have to step up and kind of just take things in our own hands,’ Morrow said. ‘And I think that now that I’m a senior, I feel double the pressure to do that.’

Morrow’s role on the team has not changed much from her freshman to senior year, but there will be one major difference for SU this season — the absence of the Orange’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, Nicole Michael.

Michael, who currently plays for Gran Canaria in Spain, had played with Morrow in AAU ball since the two were in high school. She described her relationship with Morrow as big sister to little sister. Last year, Michael was the team’s leading scorer, while the ‘little sister’ finished a close second.

For Morrow, it will be strange to take the court without Michael at her side. But the ‘big sister’ believes Morrow will do just fine without her.

‘I know she will do well this season,’ Michael said in an e-mail in October. ‘She is very strong and has a heart of a winner. There is not much I need to say to her about what she has to do this season. She pretty much knows what she has to do to get to the next level.’

That next level is the NCAA tournament. Two straight years of NIT appearances have not been enough for Morrow. She got a small taste of the big dance at the end of her freshman year. She wants another shot at it. Another shot to elevate the Syracuse women’s basketball program into a consistent contender.

The players around her may be different now, especially without Michael. But her significance still remains the same. The team needs her to play, and play well, to get to the next level. She needs to put points on the board when her team needs a bucket. Make the right decisions when the ball is in her hands. Be scrappy and cause problems on the defensive end.

And then there’s the leadership again. Her teammates and coaches all see it. Senior guard Tasha Harris called it Morrow’s ‘second nature.’ Michael said it was a ‘natural-born’ quality in the senior. Hillsman echoed those statements, as did sophomore Carmen Tyson-Thomas after just one season with Morrow.

‘I saw that (when she was a) junior, my first year last year,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘Every time I didn’t know where to go, she told me. … That’s just her role as a leader.

‘That’s her natural-born role.’

There’s also another thing Morrow has done with consistency since she stepped onto the Carrier Dome floor for the first time. She tends to find a way to have the basketball with the game on the line.

Michael remembers being down 11 to Georgetown with seven minutes left near the end of Morrow’s first year. But Morrow refused to let the game get away. Then a freshman, she scored seven of the Orange’s next 14 points to close the gap to two.

She capped the run with a 3-point heave that clanged off the back iron straight into the air before swishing through the net, eventually giving the Orange a 68-67 win.

This year, with Michael halfway across the world, Hillsman said he would have no issue giving the ball to Morrow and letting her make a play with the game on the line, just like he has done many times throughout her career.

He wants his players to want to play hero in crunch time. And Morrow certainly enjoys it.

‘Yeah, I love the challenge (of taking the last shot),’ Morrow said. ‘Who wouldn’t want to be that person? The person that everyone looks to.’

If last year is any indication, Syracuse might need some of Morrow’s heroics in the upcoming season. But the Orange needs those heroics consistently.

The Orange lost six games by four points or fewer in 2009. Because with being the go-to player in crunch times comes the good and the bad.

Morrow’s missed 3-pointer against Georgetown gave Syracuse its first loss of the season last year. Against St. John’s, her turnover led to the Red Storm completing its comeback in the game’s final five seconds. And she missed what would have been a game-winning shot against then-No. 3 Notre Dame.

‘It can be tough sometimes, definitely a lot of pressure,’ Morrow said. ‘But you always want to be that person. I always want to be that person to take the last shot of the game.’

For Morrow to reach her goal of a return trip to the NCAA tournament, a few of those losses will need to become wins. That could be even tougher without Michael, and Morrow realizes it will be different not having her ‘big sister’ with her.

But Morrow’s role as a senior has not drastically changed from what it was as a freshman. The younger players may be looking up to her now, but she has been an Orange leader since her first year here. She has had the talent and intangibles to play this role since her years at Murry Bergtraum High.

And to get back to the NCAA tournament, Syracuse needs her on the court. And Hillsman knows it.

‘She’s very important,’ Hillsman said. ‘She’s important, and it’s not just about scoring. It’s about so many different things. It’s about her leadership. … She has a lot of responsibility for our team, and we need her to do a lot of things to be successful.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on November 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm