One simple adjustment at halftime was all the Syracuse women’s basketball team needed. One little change in its offensive alignment turned a tight game into a blowout.

Instead of having two players on both blocks underneath the hoop, SU head coach Quentin Hillsman moved one of those forwards just two steps out to the short corner.

Two steps out. That’s what Hillsman said made the difference.

The change turned an 11-point halftime lead into another 30-plus-point win as No. 24 Syracuse (10-1) ran away with a 94-60 win over Saint Francis (5-7) at the Carrier Dome Tuesday in front of 1,036 fans. After a sloppy first half that included 15 turnovers and a 2-for-16 shooting stretch over the last eight minutes, the Orange shot more than 70 percent from the field in the second half. SU tied a program record with 30 assists, 19 coming in the second half as the minor adjustment opened up the floor for SU.

‘I thought it was a little too congested on the block,’ Hillsman said. ‘We kind of bottled ourselves up so we just moved a player two steps to the right. And obviously we were wide open.’

Junior Iasia Hemingway led the team with a career-high 22 points and sophomore Kayla Alexander finished with 20 — 15 of them after halftime. With Alexander as the only player under the basket in the second half, Hemingway was able to drive from the high post and finish at the rim while St. Francis had a tougher time doubling Alexander down low.

Before the break, Syracuse struggled with giveaways and could not get the ball inside cleanly. The Orange repeatedly forced passes up the court on the break that sailed into the seats. SU registered five turnovers in five minutes to open the game, and sloppiness persisted throughout the first half.

‘We just tried to hit home runs,’ Hillsman said. ‘We tried to throw 50-foot passes for layups that weren’t there, tried to throw diagonal passes from 35 feet to the basket. We just tried to make the play instead of making the pass that leads to the play.’

Fortunately for the Orange, the Red Flash couldn’t muster up anything offensively to give the Orange any worry. St. Francis registered 13 turnovers of its own and shot just 27 percent through the first 20 minutes.

But the slow start followed by a dominant second half has been typical of Syracuse through its first 11 games this year. Hillsman said he thought that even though the halftime lead was only 11, his Orange team had complete control of the game. And Alexander echoed her coach’s sentiments.

‘I thought so,’ Alexander said. ‘We were playing pretty decent defense. We had the lead, so we were calming ourselves down, just playing our game.’

St. Francis kept the game relatively close with improved shooting of its own out of the break, but it couldn’t keep up with the Orange’s easy buckets. The minor realignment at halftime created for SU to get to the rim.

Hemingway consistently drove from the free-throw line, finishing in crowds of defenders. Senior guards Tasha Harris and Erica Morrow, who combined for 17 assists, repeatedly found Alexander under the basket for layups. And when that wasn’t successful, Carmen Tyson-Thomas and Elashier Hall were able to find their way to the basket via baseline drives.

‘It kind of opened up the paint a little bit,’ Harris said of the adjustment. ‘We had more passing angles so we were able to share the ball better in the second half.’

Five of the SU’s 10 wins have now been by more than 30 points. In many of them, Syracuse has gone on big runs that span from the end of the first half into the second or start in the final stanza.

The Orange players have said throughout the year that they are a much better second-half team, and Alexander said it again after the win over St. Francis. It was the simple change Tuesday that allowed Syracuse to take over in the second half.

But with Big East play starting Saturday against Georgetown, the sophomore center said SU has to start becoming a team that plays the entire 40 minutes.

Said Alexander: ‘I’m hoping that by then we’ll be a first- and a second-half team.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on December 27, 2010 at 12:00 pm