Agnus Berenato wants a coaching clinic from Quentin Hillsman.

The Pittsburgh head coach was more than impressed with Syracuse’s offensive rebounding in their matchup Wednesday. Enough so that after the game, she said she would have to ask the Orange’s head coach how he got his team to be so successful.

She also added that SU’s performance on the glass was the difference-maker in the game.

‘They were very physical on the boards, and they crashed in,’ Berenato said. ‘And even when we had inside position, they still crashed and got rebounds.’

Syracuse entered its game with the Panthers as the nation’s leader in rebounding margin and continued that trend Wednesday. Twenty-eight of the Orange’s 50 rebounds came on the offensive end, helping SU turn a poor shooting night into a 69-60 win in the Carrier Dome. The performance on the glass led to 19 second-chance points and helped the Orange get to the free-throw line throughout the game.

‘We’re scoring the basketball because when we shoot and we miss, we go get it,’ Hillsman said. ‘And I always tell our players, the more you go, the more you get. We just try to go every time.’

SU’s first possession of the game set the trend.

Junior forward Iasia Hemingway caught the ball at the free-throw line. She was left open but couldn’t knock down the jumper. Orange center Kayla Alexander grabbed the rebound on the right block. Her putback was too strong, but Hemingway had crashed down to the other side of the paint. She pulled in the rebound but missed from in close. Alexander got one more chance but, again, couldn’t hit the shot.

Four chances, four missed opportunities for points.

The offensive struggles continued the rest of the game. Syracuse finished the night shooting 35 percent from the field. But many of those misses led to second and third chances for the Orange, leading to SU’s victory despite the mediocre shooting percentage.

Even some putback attempts from under the basket turned into squandered opportunities. But there was just enough for the Orange to come out on top.

‘It’s very important for any time, especially our team,’ sophomore guard Elashier Hall said. ‘We did a great job crashing the boards. And it just gave us an opportunity to get the ball back up on the net and get points on the board.’

One of those chances came with less than a minute left in the first half. SU had overcome a 6-for-24 shooting start to take the lead right before halftime.

The Orange ran a pick and roll with senior guard Erica Morrow and Alexander. After setting the screen at the top of the key, Alexander cut to the basket looking for a feed. But Morrow instead took a pull-up 3-pointer.

The shot clanged off the rim and dropped right to Alexander under the basket. Pittsburgh guard Taneisha Harrison tried to poke the ball away but bumped the Syracuse center as she went up for the putback. The shot dropped in off the glass, and Alexander hit the free throw for a three-point play.

Sophomore guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas, who scored just two points on 1-for-7 shooting but led the team with seven offensive rebounds, said it wasn’t a matter of Pittsburgh not fighting for the boards. Rather, it was Syracuse’s hustle that led to the big night on the glass.

‘They were boxing out hard,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘But we were all just crashing really hard. I have a nose for the ball, so I’m everywhere the ball is.’

Even though Pittsburgh head coach Berenato was impressed with the Orange’s rebounding performance, the statistics did not surprise Hillsman. He said a team that shoots such a low percentage like Syracuse did Wednesday should have more second-chance opportunities.

‘You miss like 41 shots, you’ve got a lot of (rebounds) to get,’ he said. ‘I think it’s more about our kids going every time.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on January 26, 2011 at 12:00 pm