Quentin Hillsman outlined a simple game plan before Syracuse’s game against DePaul on Tuesday: stifle the Blue Demons’ shooters.

Syracuse would try to shut down the Big East’s fourth-best 3-point shooting team by shutting down DePaul’s perimeter players. But much to Hillsman’s dismay, that strategy was not executed by his players.

‘I’m not very happy with us not getting out to shooters,’ said Hillsman, Syracuse’s head coach. ‘We had a game plan in place, and the game plan was ‘do not help off shooters.’ And we helped off shooters tonight. And that got us beat.’

Syracuse (16-7, 4-6 Big East) fell 77-61 to DePaul as the Blue Demons torched the Orange’s zone in front of 1,008 fans inside the Carrier Dome. DePaul knocked down 13 of its 23 3-point attempts, the most for an Orange opponent since Northeastern hit 14 in the first game of the season. After sticking with the Blue Demons (22-3, 9-1) in the first half, the Orange could not keep up with DePaul’s torrid shooting pace for the full 40 minutes and suffered its third consecutive loss.

‘Every time we would get something going, they would come back,’ SU sophomore guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas said. ‘Dagger 3 at the top, 3 at the top, offensive rebound. Every time we did something good, they did something better.’

DePaul was dialed in from the opening tip, as forward Keisha Hampton nailed a 3-pointer from the top of the key on the Blue Demons’ second possession. Hampton continued to lead the charge early, knocking down her three first-half triples within the game’s opening seven minutes.

When she finally missed her first shot of the game, the junior Hampton chased down her own rebound and buried a floater in the paint, giving DePaul its largest lead of the half at 20-11.

SU willed its way back into the game, battling and clawing for points in the paint. While the Orange struggled for every basket, DePaul was the side constantly getting wide-open looks.

But in spite of this, Syracuse took the lead a few times before halftime. After the break, though, the Blue Demons maintained their scorching pace, and SU couldn’t keep up.

‘I feel like we were getting there, but we were just a second late,’ junior guard Iasia Hemingway said. ‘And they had some good shooters. They shot crazy good.’

That shooting percentage was aided by the Blue Demons’ ability to pick apart the SU 2-3 zone. Of the 13 3-pointers DePaul made, 11 of them were assisted as its players worked the ball flawlessly around the Orange defenders.

As a result, the shooters weren’t creating room for themselves. DePaul worked the ball around the zone until a hole opened up. And once Syracuse left someone open, the Blue Demons found a shooter for the easy look.

‘That’s what we work on right there is assists,’ Blue Demons head coach Doug Bruno said. ‘We want our baskets scored by people sharing. … Today, I thought we really came back and shared the ball well in the second half.’

While Hampton led the attack for DePaul early, senior guard Deirdre Naughton came off the bench and caught fire the rest of the way. She tallied a season-high 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc.

And in the second half, it was Naughton who provided the daggers that killed SU’s comeback hopes.

Her first 3 after the break extended the DePaul lead to double digits for the first time with 12:22 left. Her second — just two minutes later — extended the margin to 14. The last triple just two possessions later put the score at 66-51. SU never got closer than 12 after that.

After the game, Hillsman said the problem was not that the Orange stayed in a 2-3 zone. Instead, in his mind, the team’s issue was its execution of that trademark defense.

‘It’s about playing a better zone,’ he said. ‘It’s not about wavering on what you believe in and what you stand for as a coach and as a program. … It’s about playing a better zone. It’s about not giving up open looks.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on February 8, 2011 at 12:00 pm