Quentin Hillsman faced his bench players and moved his hand in a circular motion to signify to his Syracuse team that he wanted it to play at a faster pace.

The game was tied at 24 with six and a half minutes to go in the first half and Syracuse needed a spark. But there was a higher demand for improved play and the head coach’s gesture showed it.

“We needed to do something and defense gives us energy to turn the game around,” SU guard Alexis Peterson said. “We used our defense to create our offense and get us going.”

The Orange then went on a 18-5 run in the final six and a half minutes of the half and built a lead it would never relinquish after that. SU held just a six-point lead two minutes into the second half, until its relentless defense went into full effect.

Syracuse went on a 20-0 run in the next six minutes that propelled the Orange to a 94-63 victory over the Catamounts (0-6) on Monday night in the Carrier Dome, in which SU won the turnover battle 32-8 and scored 40 points off turnovers.

“It was a tremendous defensive game from our team,” Hillsman said, “and I just got to give them a lot of credit for sticking with it and playing hard the entire game.”

Syracuse shot 44 percent from the field, allowing it to set up its full-court press and force Vermont into mistakes.

At one point during the dominant stretch, SU’s Diamond Henderson and Alexis Peterson each forced two steals on four straight Vermont possessions, which led to four layups.

And each time Syracuse scored, its bench players jumped up and cheered as the players on the court and the bench fed off each other, guard Isabella Slim said.

Though Syracuse pulled away for the convincing victory, the score was close at the beginning of each half. Vermont treaded water with 12 3-pointers, but it wasn’t enough once the Orange’s defense clamped down with pressure.

After SU’s Maggie Morrison hit a 3 with 13 minutes left, Vermont’s Emilie Cloutier threw the ball into the stands while trying to break the press. Not a single player was nearby, but the stifling defense forced her into the mistake.

“You could tell the energy in the second half was definitely a lot higher than it was in the first,” Morrison said.

Syracuse’s 94 points were a season high, as well as its 23 steals, which is more than double its average per game.

Slim grabbed 10 rebounds, a career and team high. Cornelia Fondren also stuffed the stat sheet with eight rebounds, 14 points and five steals, all career highs. Morrison’s 11 points were also a career-high.

Though Hillsman spread out the playing time to 11 players, many of them contributed in unprecedented ways regardless.

Coming off a four-point loss to No. 1 South Carolina on Friday, the winless Catamounts would have been a quintessential trap-game opponent.

But the Orange stuck to its strategy and it worked nearly perfectly.

“When you can spread a lead out, get up and down the floor and score, get your defense set, get a few turnovers in a row and string some together, that’s important for your success,” Hillsman said.

“That’s the way we play.”

Published on December 1, 2014 at 11:33 pm

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