Syracuse’s guards kept pressing. It didn’t matter the Orange had played a road game on Friday night and had the two-day turnaround. Or that Brittney Sykes, Alexis Peterson and Gabby Cooper had played nearly the entire first half. Or even that SU was playing, as Briana Day said, in an “unnaturally hot” gym.

Early in the third quarter, Brittney Sykes dribbled around the North Carolina defense before hitting a layup. As soon as the ball dropped through the hoop, Sykes found a UNC player to guard on the press. She stole the ball in the backcourt, hop stepped hard to draw the Tar Heel she stole the ball from and then dumped it off to Day for a layup.

“We’re young and inexperienced back there,” UNC head coach Sylvia Hatchell said. “We made it look good.”

No. 20 Syracuse (18-8, 9-4) was coming off a 17-point loss to Duke less than 48 hours earlier. But back in the Carrier Dome, where it hasn’t lost all year, and against an inexperienced team, the Orange held the advantage. Multiple press schemes earned 27 points off turnovers and resulted in Syracuse’s dominating 95-64 victory over UNC (13-12, 2-10) on Sunday evening.

At the end of the first half, Quentin Hillsman yelled at Brittney Sykes, who had scored 17 points to that point. He said after the game that he felt she, and the team, hadn’t finished the half of strong. He didn’t want SU taking any possessions, or its lead, for granted.

So, the Orange blitzed the Tar Heels to start the third quarter and forced UNC into eight of their 18 total turnovers in that one quarter alone.

“… I thought that was really the difference in the third quarter,” Peterson said. “…We just rotated up, played hard, got steals and got to get out in transition.”

At first, SU deployed an individual-based press. On one play that started with an inbound pass from near halfcourt, the Orange forced UNC into a backcourt violation. Another ended with North Carolina turning it over after a five-second violation underneath its own basket.

Afterward, North Carolina broke that press with four players, including bigs, in the backcourt. The guard standing furthest from the player throwing the ball in would streak to the hoop and get a football-like throw for a layup. It happened twice before SU decided it needed some changes.

“They did a good job. We got into one press, turned them over a few times and then they went long twice,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “… we made adjustments with out press, which was the difference in keeping them in front of us and not getting beat over the top.”

SU switched into looser, zone-based pressure. One SU player free-lanced near midcourt, eliminating the deep ball.

Following the inbound, the SU defender on that side of the court and the player guarding the inbounds double-teamed North Carolina’s pass recipient. Sometimes, that alone would create a turnover.

Even when UNC surpassed the initial double-team, SU’s press remained. On one play, Gabby Cooper and Day doubled a Tar Heel in the corner, but she managed to swing the ball back to Paris Kea, who threw the ball in.

Kea went to dribble forward, seemingly without much pressure. But Sykes rotated over from the weakside, forcing Kea to dribble the ball too far ahead and right into the hands of Peterson.

Another turnover, another easy bucket.

Hillsman said that it’s normally tough to switch between two press schemes midway through a quarter. But he felt confident that it’d be executed correctly, given most of the players on the courts were veterans and had a lot of experience in SU’s pressing scheme.

“Anytime we can play that way and continue to press and have a press to be able to attack their press offense,” Hillsman said, “we’re going to be in good shape.”

Published on February 12, 2017 at 7:42 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer