It became a common sight in practice this season. During an especially difficult defensive drill, Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman would shrilly blow his whistle and storm onto the court, his fiery eyes angrily fixated atop the 2-3 zone that had just broken down.

Usually, Tasha Harris knew she did something wrong before Hillsman got to her, and she would sullenly saunter over to the sideline. If she didn’t, Harris figured it out when she was at the front of the sprinting groups assigned as punishment for the mistake.

And when she was at her lowest point, completely out of breath with her head down, disappointed because she once again forgot which way to slide, that’s when Cintia Johnson would step in.

Hillsman compares the relationship between Johnson and Harris to that of a mother and daughter. There’s Johnson, the junior point guard who started every game last season, willingly accepting a bench role for the freshman Harris, one of the highlights of Hillsman’s touted recruiting class.

Johnson is a defensive specialist; Harris came into college more concerned with making flashy passes. Johnson dives on the floor for loose balls more than anybody on the team; Harris is still learning she’s allowed to get her uniform dirty. But with Harris’ raw talent and Johnson’s mentoring and coaching, Harris has quietly become a competent floor general capable of leading the Orange to its first-ever NCAA Tournament win.

The freshman leads the team in assists, with 3.83 per game, and has the best assist-to-turnover ratio on the team.

‘I knew for myself she’s new to the program, and that she doesn’t know as much as me being a veteran here for two years,’ Johnson said. ‘I just wanted to help her with certain things, with plays, with how to do things on the court. I would just take her aside after she did something wrong and say, ‘You have to do this.”

For Harris, running an offense was never a problem, and she stepped in right away by starting all 30 games at point guard. Hillsman has entrusted her all year with much of the ball-handling duties, and she’s rewarded him with almost four assists a night, including an 11-assist performance against Seton Hall on Feb. 16.

But defense was another story altogether. During her impressive high school career for St. Michael Academy in the Bronx, Harris didn’t worry too much about the defensive end. Her team was so good it would just outscore its opponents, so everyone could take a collective breather on defense.

So it was a bit of a shock to her when Hillsman would yell at her in practice for not giving enough effort on defense. It was even more jarring when he would take her out of the game after a blown assignment.

‘In high school, we were all really talented, so we got away with not playing defense every possession,’ Harris said. ‘My defense is not that bad, but I don’t stay in the stance every possession. I get lazy. It’s a matter of playing hard every possession.’

Working hard on defense has never been a problem for Johnson, who at 5-foot-4 is the ultimate lockdown defender for the Orange. When Harris would struggle, Hillsman would sacrifice a little offense by putting in Johnson for her defense, most notably against Cincinnati on Feb. 23, when Johnson helped shut down the Bearcats’ Kahla Roudebush.

As her defensive struggles continued, Harris’ confidence began to falter. She said watching Johnson play defense in practice and games has helped motivate her get better on the defensive end herself, but that she is just now starting to get her confidence back, once again thanks to her unofficial mentor.

‘If I turn the ball over or made a mistake, I’d get so down on myself, it was really tough,’ Harris said. ‘Cintia would always be the first one over to me and saying, ‘What are you mad for? You made a mistake, so what? Get back on the other end and make a play.”

Hillsman thinks he’s found a solution, though. After seeing Harris sometimes let down on defense, he decided the best way for her to improve wasn’t by sitting her down, but by playing her even more. So against Cincinnati, when Johnson was tired, Hillsman decided to put Harris on the hot-shooting Roudebush, and she shut her down for eight key minutes in the second half.

It seemed strange, but so far it’s worked.

‘Every game now we’ve had that, that we need to guard somebody, I put Tasha on her,’ Hillsman said. ‘I put Tasha on the best player because that’s how you ensure she won’t let up. If you let up on her, she’s going to score. So we just put her on the best player, and that’s how I’ve made her play defense.’

Harris said Johnson has truly been the key to her success this season, especially her improvement on the defensive end. For Johnson, she knew she was doing her job right when Harris approached her and said she aspired to one day defend like her.

Harris is still a work in progress, though, and her biggest test still lies ahead as Syracuse begins its NCAA Tournament run Saturday against Hartford. But if she does something right – a key steal, a proper rotation of the zone – nobody will be prouder than Johnson.

‘I just tell her, ‘You have the potential to play offense and defense, but most importantly defense wins games, not offense,” Johnson said. ‘So I had to let her understand that. It’s not so much the scoring, it’s more getting stops so we can win.’

jediamon@syr.edu

Published on March 19, 2008 at 12:00 pm