Women's basketball

Syracuse dominates the glass against smaller Canisius, cruises to 70-37 victory

Michael Cole | Staff Photographer

Syracuse forward Bria Day towers for a rebound in the paint during the Orange's 70-37 win over Canisius on Tuesday night.

Just over a minute into the game, Syracuse collected four offensive rebounds on a single possession and eventually got the ball to guard Alexis Peterson, who knocked down a 3-pointer.

The Orange scored the game’s first eight points and within the first three minutes, forward Briana Day already had four rebounds. Three minutes later, guard Cornelia Fondren’s offensive rebound and putback forced Canisius to take a timeout as SU immediately flexed its muscles on the glass early on.

“That’s tough to guard when you keep getting possession after possession,” Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “You have the ball for 45, 30 seconds and then you miss a shot, get a rebound, miss a shot, get a rebound. That’s really tough on a defense.”

No. 19 Syracuse (8-1) went on to thrash Canisius (4-5, 2-0 Metro Atlantic Athletic) 70-37 on Tuesday night in front of 393 in the Carrier Dome. Syracuse won the rebounding battle 67-31 and totaled 37 offensive boards. Bria Day’s team-high and career-high 11 rebounds led the way as Fondren and Briana Day collected nine and eight, respectively.

Though the Orange dominated on the glass, it had a significant height advantage. Canisius only has three players taller than 6 feet, and just one of them played more than three minutes Tuesday. Five SU players 6 feet or taller combined for 30 rebounds.



Canisius entered the game shooting 41 percent from 3 and part of the Orange’s game plan was to cut that percentage down. By grabbing so many rebounds and often limiting the Golden Griffins to one shot per possession, Canisius didn’t many rebounds on its 3-for-14 performance from downtown.

“We didn’t want to start giving up unsettled 3s and obviously when they get offensive rebounds, they can throw the ball out and start reversing the ball,” Hillsman said. “…You can’t guard that stuff because we can’t get the defense set.”

Though Hillsman said solely execution contributed to the high number of rebounds, he acknowledged that shooting 25-for-81 gave Syracuse so many chances to clean the glass.

As a layup attempt by Canisius’ Crystal Porter hung on the rim 40 seconds before halftime, each Golden Griffin cleared out and ran back on defense without even contesting Syracuse’s 6 foot-4 Amber Witherspoon for the rebound.

The game had already become rout by halftime, as the Orange held a 35-13 rebounding edge to take a 40-15 lead. And when the second half began, Briana Day — SU’s leading rebounder — snagged another offensive rebound and made an easy layup to end the fans’ stand-and-clap as SU continued to pull away.

After picking up her third foul 62 seconds into the second half, she subbed out for her twin sister Bria, who averaged 2.6 rebounds per game before Tuesday.

But the Orange’s supremacy on the boards didn’t miss a beat, as Bria Day pulled down eight boards in nine second-half minutes.

“She definitely was just really going after everything today regardless of if she was boxed out,” Briana Day said of her sister. “She was going for the long ones, she was just really working hard.”

Although Briana Day said the strong rebounding simply came from working hard, just like nearly every other game this season, Fondren explained that the success came as a result of good positioning when the shots went up.

“I think the main thing is crash, crash, crash,” Fondren said. “We all got to box out if we want to get the rebound.”

After four straight blowout wins over nonconference opponents, Syracuse will take on No. 9 Baylor and No. 18 Michigan State this weekend.

Rebounding at a similar rate as the past four games would ensure Syracuse can compete with other nationally ranked teams.

“We pride ourselves on rebounding,” Peterson said. “… If we’re rebounding like this, I think it puts us in a great position moving forward.”





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