Iasia Hemingway sat with a towel around her neck and a blank stare on her face. As the final minute of the first half ticked away, the Syracuse forward, already saddled, could only watch from the bench.

The Orange was plagued by foul trouble against West Virginia on Saturday and never found its offensive rhythm. In addition to Hemingway, centers Kayla Alexander and Shakeya Leary spent extended periods on the bench, derailing SU’s inside game.

‘It’s tough when you don’t have either one of your post players in the game to score the basketball,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said in a phone interview. ‘It’s tough to play that way. That’s not how we play.’

With its offensive game plan taken away, Syracuse (18-14) struggled to adapt and fell 63-48 to West Virginia (22-8) in the second round of the Big East tournament on Saturday. The Orange shot just 30.2 percent from the field against the Mountaineers and never threatened the Mountaineers’ lead in the second half. And the foul trouble led to 33 free-throw attempts for WVU compared to just 10 for Syracuse.

The Orange seem destined to play in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament for the fourth consecutive year with the loss.

The Mountaineers finished the day shooting 35.3 percent from the field, but they knocked down 24 of their free throws to keep a comfortable lead over SU. For Hillsman, the difference in production at the foul line was too much to overcome.

‘We got more shots than West Virginia, we got more offensive rebounds than West Virginia. I thought we kept our turnovers down reasonable,’ Hillsman said. ‘We kept them to 30 percent shooting.

‘We just didn’t get to the foul line. They made 17 more free throws than we made and it’s tough to win that way.’

Hillsman said it was also tough to stick with WVU without its top scoring options on the floor.

With Hemingway, Alexander and Leary stuck on the bench much of the game — playing 22, 21 and 10 minutes, respectively, the offense depended on its backcourt to make plays. Elashier Hall went 5-of-19 from the field for 11 points and Carmen Tyson-Thomas made just six of her 15 attempts for 15 points.

Hemingway finished with nine points on 2-of-8 shooting and committed four fouls. Alexander had three fouls and scored just four points on four shot attempts. Finally, Leary was held scoreless and fouled out of the game. The struggles were a stark contrast to the team’s first-round victory over Providence on Friday when the trio combined for 42 of SU’s 57 points.

‘We play through our post and throw the ball inside and it’s tough when you don’t have have a (center) inside to score the basketball,’ Hillsman said.

Hillsman felt his players attacked the basket with the same aggression as West Virginia, but they didn’t get the calls.

Still, the head coach knows the Orange needed to capitalize on its opportunities on offense if it wanted to pull the upset.

‘It was one of those things where maybe they were just powering up to the basket and we were doing the same thing on our end and the whistle didn’t go our way,’ Hillsman said. ‘But I thought at the end of the day, it’s a situation where we got to make shots in the lane and we can’t afford to leave points on the board.’

rjgery@syr.edu

Published on March 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Ryne: rjgery@syr.edu