Before the tip of the Syracuse women’s basketball team’s game against Seton Hall on Saturday, Rochelle Coleman jogged out to center court, gave her mom and dad a hug and smiled.

In front of a Senior Night crowd of 779, a lighter side of Coleman was on display. If the referees made a call she didn’t agree with, Coleman turned around and grinned. She enthusiastically encouraged her teammates for the four minutes head coach Keith Cieplicki decided to take her out of the game, and before the postgame press conference, she alluded to MC Hammer while telling her teammates to be quiet.

‘Stop, hammer time,’ a playful Coleman said.

And in her last game at Manley Field House, a 51-38 Syracuse win over Seton Hall, she had a reason to be giddy. Coleman proved how valuable she is to the success of the Orange, with every offensive play somehow running through her. And while she only scored six points, there is good reason Syracuse calls Coleman its offensive leader.

‘She has a good feel for the game,’ Cieplicki said. ‘I think we’re asking her to do too much. She’s handling the ball. We want her to make shots. We want her to tell everybody else what to do. We pretty much want her to make all her decisions and then everybody else’s.’

But Coleman tackled the task with relative ease on Saturday. Whenever Seton Hall (14-12, 6-9 Big East) failed to hit a shot, which was often, Coleman immediately crashed the boards. And in a lineup with 6-footers Chineze Nwagbo and Vaida Sipavicuite, the 5-foot-8 Coleman led Syracuse (12-14, 4-11) with 10 rebounds.

Coleman didn’t just stop when she grabbed a rebound. Once she had the ball under control, Coleman quickly pushed it up the court and set SU’s offense.

With that strategy, SU scored 17 straight points, and blew the game open, 21-3, in the first 10 minutes. In that stretch, Coleman scored six points and had three assists. She failed to score the rest of the game, but finished with a team-high five assists.

Seton Hall tried to slow the Orange run by using a press, but Coleman, with the help of her teammates, calmly broke it.

‘Coleman came out pretty focused,’ said SHU head coach Phyllis Mangina. ‘She hit some jumpers in the beginning. Their seniors set the tone. They came out with great conviction and got a win.’

And no one wanted a win more than Coleman.

While all the attention seemed to be on the last home game at Manley, Coleman focused her attention on playing the game, and not the ceremonies surrounding it. In practice all week, she went about her business like every other week. At least for now, SU’s Big East standing was more important to Coleman than the bouquet of flowers she and the other seniors received before the game.

‘It’s good going into the Big East tournament to have momentum,’ Coleman said. ‘If we win at Georgetown (tomorrow), that would be huge. Every win is huge. The season’s not over yet.’

Coleman doesn’t want to see it end. While the win over SHU ends a six-game losing streak for Syracuse, Coleman’s desire to win is as high as ever. She’s having fun, and it finally showed Saturday night.

‘She never gets down,’ Cieplicki said. ‘She’s always upbeat. She always picks everybody else up. She’s been a huge key this year for us, playing hard even through the stretches where we weren’t winning.’

Published on February 26, 2005 at 12:00 pm