From around the summer of 2009 until the spring of 2014, Mac Irvin’s Chicago-based AAU basketball team, the Fire, ended all its practices the same way: with a dunk from its 6-foot-4 center Amber Witherspoon.

When the routine began, Irvin gave Witherspoon five attempts to dunk a volleyball. If she couldn’t convert, the team ran sprints. In a little over a year, Witherspoon dunked volleyballs with ease, and graduated to a full-sized basketball.

“By the time she was a junior in high school, it became really consistent,” Irvin said. “I started to make her dunk with two hands. The one hand got a little easy for her, so I had to make it a little tougher.”

A reserve center for No. 23 Syracuse (17-7, 7-4 Atlantic Coast), Witherspoon has played in 16 of SU’s 24 games. Though she averages just over five minutes a game, the freshman possesses a skill set that once led Orange head coach Quentin Hillsman to call her “the best natural athlete” in the entire 2014 high school class.

When Irvin first saw Witherspoon in seventh grade, he saw what everyone else saw, and what years later Hillsman would see: a lanky center with a defensive prowess and an offensive game that lagged behind. Irvin saw a clean slate, someone who didn’t have any deficiencies. He saw the “gracefulness” of how she ran.

He thought to himself, “We can do some good things with this kid.”

Irvin, whose program produced Jabari Parker and Jahlil Okafor on the men’s side, worked with Witherspoon every other day from seventh grade to her high school graduation. They worked on “Mikan Drills,” which help post players develop rhythm, time jumps for rebounding and score in the paint.

Defensively, Witherspoon immediately became a forceful shot-blocker. Offensively, the long center lacked superior back-to-the-basket skills, so Irvin used her in pick-and-rolls with Linnae Harper — now a Kentucky guard — and took advantage of her height with over-the-top lobs.

“She had pretty good timing and a lot of blocked shots,” Irvin said. “Offensively, she never brings the ball down. She keeps it high.”

In an AAU tournament in Las Vegas before her senior year of high school, Witherspoon dunked in a game for the first time. The Fire was on a fast break, and the point guard threw an outlet pass up the right side. Out of nowhere, Witherspoon slashed down the middle, caught a pass in stride and dunked in rhythm.

“The whole gym went crazy,” Irvin said.

Witherspoon’s AAU development mimics her progression now at Syracuse. The center, who continues to work on her footwork with SU assistant Sasha Palmer, has eight points in 85 minutes and has shot just 2-of-8 from the free-throw line.

For Hillsman, Witherspoon possesses the one attribute coaches can’t coach — athleticism. Witherspoon has had two blocks in a game three times and averages just over a rebound per game.

“When I finally got to play and I started getting more comfortable with the different types of footwork, that’s when (I felt like I could compete in college),” Witherspoon said.

And on the offensive glass, SU forward Taylor Ford said, she’s closer to 6 feet, 9 inches with her arms out.

Then there’s the dunking factor, something that has never been done by an Orange player during Hillsman’s nine-year tenure. On Jan. 29, before Syracuse played then-No. 8 Louisville, Witherspoon showed a glimpse into the future and dunked during the Orange’s pregame warm-up.

“You don’t see a lot of girls dunk,” Ford said. “I think if she were to do that in a game that would be fantastic. I think it would shock us and I think it would definitely shock the other team.”

Published on February 11, 2015 at 12:11 am

Contact Josh: jmhyber@syr.edu