It took all of four seconds for the Syracuse women’s basketball team to begin its case to show it has no problems putting up points.

Against Eastern Kentucky on Saturday, Nicole Michael took a pass from Erica Morrow and connected on the shot to give Syracuse its first points of the game at the 19:56 mark, four seconds after the Orange won the opening tip-off.

From there, the floodgates were open, as the Orange exploded to a 55-point first half and an 88-67 win in the first game of the Taco Bell Warhawk Classic. It won the tournament the following day with a 69-56 win over host Louisiana-Monroe.

The 55-point effort – the most points for SU in a single half since 2001 – was led by Chandrea Jones and Fantasia Goodwin, who each tallied 17 in the half. The Orange shot 62 percent from the field and used a 16-2 run at the end of the half to stretch its lead to 21.

‘You always want to go in and score early, get it out of the way early,’ Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘Once you get going and once you get into a rhythm, you know, we began to play better on the offensive end. I think that definitely getting off and scoring early in the game is huge.’

Going into the weekend, SU had been averaging fewer than 32 points in the opening half, and the team had been outscored 132-126. In its most recent game against Colgate, the Orange was held scoreless for more than four minutes to start the game. It had been relying on its second half, when it had scored the majority of its points in three out of four outings.

‘It’s cool to get 55 points in a half,’ Hillsman said. ‘I really believe that we took great shots, they really just made a constant effort of knowing how important every shot and every possession was in that game.’

Syracuse needed all of those points, Hillsman said, because his team’s defense early in the game left something to be desired. The Orange traded baskets with the Colonels for most of the half before taking control with about eight minutes remaining.

‘Eastern Kentucky is a good team, and we knew that they would come in and be good,’ Hillsman said. ‘So it was one of those things where we knew if we got off good, we could stop them early, and I don’t know if we did a really good job of stopping them early, but because we were scoring, it kind of evened things out.’

Like the first game, Syracuse used a strong first half to get past Louisiana-Monroe in the championship game. The Orange once again shot above 50 percent from the field on its way to a five-point lead at the break.

Hillsman said he had been imploring his team in practice during the previous week to focus on shot selection. During his team’s previous four-game stretch, Hillsman had been imploring his players throughout the game to take better shots, as its percentage dipped to 36. Getting more open looks in the two weekend games helped the Orange shoot 49 percent.

‘That was something that we talked about and wanted to make a conscious effort to take our best shot in situations,’ Hillsman said.

Adding to Syracuse’s offensive resurgence was improved 3-point shooting. Heading into the weekend, SU had sunk just 15 out of 78 tries from deep for a Big East-worst 19 percent. But led by freshman Erica Morrow’s 4-for-4 performance, SU shot 48 percent on the weekend from behind the arc.

‘You definitely want to score because you can play great, great defense and not score the ball, and then you’re going to have a problem,’ Hillsman said. ‘You’re not going to shut people out. So you’ve got to score.’

A day after the Orange finished its best start in three seasons, Hillsman couldn’t help but be impressed by the 55-point effort his team put out to start the weekend. When asked if he had ever been part of a team that scored that many points in a single half, he paused to think.

He said: ‘Yeah, in high school.’

Published on December 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm