Following Syracuse’s game against Rutgers Tuesday night, SU head coach Quentin Hillsman thought his team turned in a solid performance. The Orange shot better from the field than the Scarlet Knights, won the rebounding battle and owned the paint.

But it was one statistic that didn’t favor Syracuse and proved to be the difference in the game.

‘We just turned the ball over too much,’ Hillsman said in a phone interview. ‘We had 27 turnovers and those are opportunities where you don’t get shots and it’s hard to play games when you’re not getting enough shots.’

Turnovers cost Syracuse (11-5, 0-2 Big East) in a hard-fought 55-44 loss to No. 10 Rutgers (12-2, 1-0) on Tuesday night in Piscataway, N.J. In a game in which neither team could find its rhythm offensively, the 27 lost opportunities for the Orange were too much to overcome. In comparison, the Scarlet Knights had just 12 turnovers against 10 assists, and their more efficient play allowed them to pull away late in the second half.

The Orange held a 16-15 lead and kept pace with Rutgers deep into the first half. SU guard Carmen Tyson-Thomas keyed the strong start, scoring 10 of SU’s first 16 points. She also added five rebounds early on, bringing energy and keeping her team in the game.

But no one else on the Orange stepped up to shoulder the scoring load, and the Scarlet Knights closed the half with a run of its own to take a 28-20 lead into halftime.  

‘She made shots early in the game and that was huge,’ Hillsman said. ‘She kept us going and I thought that if we got someone else going early with her, it would have been a different basketball game.’

After the break, Syracuse was able to cut into Rutgers’ lead and tie the game 34-34 with 10:32 left in the second half. Hillsman said the key to closing the gap was simply attacking the basket and playing at the rim. During those first 10 minutes, the head coach felt his team got high-percentage shots and it translated to tying the game.

The aggressive play in the second half was led by forward Iasia Hemingway, who scored all 14 of her points after halftime. But much like in the first half when Tyson-Thomas had the hot hand, SU didn’t have another scoring threat on the floor.

Tyson-Thomas scored just two points to finish with 12, and no other Orange players finished in double figures. Even as Hillsman lamented the lack of production outside of Tyson-Thomas and Hemingway, he couldn’t help but turn his attention back to the turnovers that ruined SU’s chances of pulling the upset on the road.

‘It’s just tough when you can’t get solid shots every possession because you turn the ball over,’ Hillsman said. ‘But I thought that our kids played really tough, they played aggressive and they played hard.’

The poor execution on offense killed SU’s momentum in the second half as it went 6:51 without a field goal after tying the game at 34. The Orange hit free throws to even the score with Rutgers 36-36, but then saw the Scarlet Knights go on an 11-1 run to go up 47-37 with just under six minutes to play.

Syracuse never threatened the Scarlet Knights lead, and ultimately fell to its conference rival. And as the Orange continue to search for its first Big East win this Saturday against Pittsburgh, Hillsman knows for his team to win, it must take care of the ball and make every possession count.

‘That was big, just turning the ball over, just not being efficient,’ Hillsman said. ‘We’re going to have those games, we don’t take care of the ball. But you also got to balance it off and the shots you take, you got to make those shots.’

rjgery@syr.edu

Published on January 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Ryne: rjgery@syr.edu