WBB SU 71 vs Miami 85 2/12/15 7:00 @Cuse | Syracusefan.com

WBB SU 71 vs Miami 85 2/12/15 7:00 @Cuse

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The Syracuse women's basketball team returns home on Thursday night when its hosts ACC-foe Miami at 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome. Thursday night's contest is the annual Play 4Kay game, as well.
 
Paul Schwedelson ‏@pschweds 29m29 minutes ago
Syracuse WBB has moved up to No. 23 in this week's AP Poll after losing to then-No. 9 Florida State and beating then-No. 13 UNC and Ga. Tech
 
http://cuse.com/news/2015/2/10/WBB_0210150640.aspx?path=wbasket

SYRACUSE, N.Y. –
Following an undefeated week, the Syracuse University women's basketball team rose in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Polls. Syracuse ranks No. 23 in the country in the latest release of the AP Poll and No. 22 nationally in the coaches' rankings.

Last week, the Orange recorded victories against No. 13/11 North Carolina and on the road at Georgia Tech. The club scored its first victory against a top-25 opponent in 2014-15 when it took down the Tar Heels, 61-56, on Feb. 5 in the Carrier Dome. Syracuse went right back to work with a 65-60 win at Georgia Tech on Feb. 8.

The Orange will host Miami on Thursday night in its annual Play 4Kay game. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome. Free pink t-shirts and ribbons will be given out at the game. In addition, fans in attendance will have a chance to win courtside seats to the men's basketball game against Duke on Saturday night.
 
http://www.nunesmagician.com/2015/2...-basketball-their-best-home-attendance-of-the

Let's Get Syracuse Women's Basketball Their Best Home Attendance of the Season
By Sean Keeley@SeanKeeleyIsMe on Feb 11, 2015, 9:02a +

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Enough already. The Syracuse women's basketball team is winning games, getting ranked and playing for the post-season. They deserve more butts in the seats. So let's make it our butts.

By all accounts, the attendance issue concerning Syracuse Orange women's basketball is no longer something we can all abide.

Here are the facts:

  • Syracuse WBB averages 649 fans for home games in the Carrier Dome, which is capable of seating in excess of 35K.
  • That is not only the worst average home attendance in the ACC but it's the worst average home attendance of any Power Five conference school.
  • As recently as the 2010-2011 season, the Orange averaged 1,119 fans per home game. That total has consistently dropped off right on through last season when the team averaged a paltry 599 in attendance per game.
  • The Syracuse men's team draws roughly 44 times as many fans as the women's team. That's the highest ratio of any school in Division I.
All of this is not to say that Syracuse Women's Basketball should be averaging 10K in the stands every night. I mean, they SHOULD, but, that's not going to happen overnight. Despite the fact that Coach Q's program continues to win, consistently goes to the post-season and has become a fixture in the national rankings, the situation simply will not improve as-is.

So let's change the as-is of the situation.

Syracuse's season-high home game attendance so far is 2,148 when the No. 4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish came to town. TNIAAM thinks we can do better than that and there's no better time to do it then the final game of the season.

Sunday, February 22 at 12:00 p.m., the Orange will host the Pittsburgh Panthers. The Orange will assumedly be jostling for ACC Tournament seeding as well as a spot in the NCAA Tournament (two things the men's team won't be doing). Also, it's Senior Day. How about we send the women out right by notching the highest home game attendance of the season?

To make it fun for us, we're going to take over an entire section in the Carrier Dome. Given the lack of attendees, our section will be pretty close to the court so you won't have to worry about a bad seat. If we can pack that section, we'll not only show some Orange Pride but we'll also help make the team feel a whole lot better about looking up into the stands for support.

Here's how we do it.

1. Click this link to purchase a game ticket.

2. Click "find tickets" for the Pittsburgh game.

3. When it asks you for a promo code, type TNIAAM

4. Select the number of tickets you want (up to eight) and click Find Seats. All tickets are $5.

5. We're still finalizing the specific section that we're going to take over with the Dome, so in the meantime just go ahead and purchase the General Admission ticket option that comes up. Once the Carrier Dome provides us with the section we're taking, that's where your tickets will be good for.

6. If you're a student, the game is free to you so all you need to do is show up with a student I.D. We're trying to get our section as close as possible to the student section so we can work in tandem. If we could match a packed student section with ours...bonus.

7. Go to the game on February 22 in your finest orange and root on the only Syracuse basketball team that has the potential to win an ACC or National Title in 2015.

That's it. We'll have updates as they come in. In the meantime, please share this far and wide and get anyone who wants to support SU and support the women's team to buy a ticket. Some of the TNIAAM folks will be attending as well so it's a great opportunity for folks in the readership and community to actually meet face-to-face as well.

We're probably not going to sell out the Dome but if we can make sure there's at least 2,150 fans in the stands on February 22, we'll have done something pretty worthwhile. G'ORANGE!
 
http://dailyorange.com/2015/02/reserve-witherspoon-shows-potential-for-syracuse-as-freshman-center/

Reserve Witherspoon shows potential for Syracuse as freshman center

By Josh HyberStaff Writer
10 hours ago

From around the summer of 2009 until the spring of 2014, Mac Irvin’s Chicago-based AAU basketball team, the Fire, ended all its practices the same way: with a dunk from its 6-foot-4 center Amber Witherspoon.

When the routine began, Irvin gave Witherspoon five attempts to dunk a volleyball. If she couldn’t convert, the team ran sprints. In a little over a year, Witherspoon dunked volleyballs with ease, and graduated to a full-sized basketball.

“By the time she was a junior in high school, it became really consistent,” Irvin said. “I started to make her dunk with two hands. The one hand got a little easy for her, so I had to make it a little tougher.”

A reserve center for No. 23 Syracuse (17-7, 7-4 Atlantic Coast), Witherspoon has played in 16 of SU’s 24 games. Though she averages just over five minutes a game, the freshman possesses a skill set that once led Orange head coach Quentin Hillsman to call her “the best natural athlete” in the entire 2014 high school class.

When Irvin first saw Witherspoon in seventh grade, he saw what everyone else saw, and what years later Hillsman would see: a lanky center with a defensive prowess and an offensive game that lagged behind. Irvin saw a clean slate, someone who didn’t have any deficiencies. He saw the “gracefulness” of how she ran.

He thought to himself, “We can do some good things with this kid.”

Irvin, whose program produced Jabari Parker and Jahlil Okafor on the men’s side, worked with Witherspoon every other day from seventh grade to her high school graduation. They worked on “Mikan Drills,” which help post players develop rhythm, time jumps for rebounding and score in the paint.

Defensively, Witherspoon immediately became a forceful shot-blocker. Offensively, the long center lacked superior back-to-the-basket skills, so Irvin used her in pick-and-rolls with Linnae Harper — now a Kentucky guard — and took advantage of her height with over-the-top lobs.

“She had pretty good timing and a lot of blocked shots,” Irvin said. “Offensively, she never brings the ball down. She keeps it high.”

In an AAU tournament in Las Vegas before her senior year of high school, Witherspoon dunked in a game for the first time. The Fire was on a fast break, and the point guard threw an outlet pass up the right side. Out of nowhere, Witherspoon slashed down the middle, caught a pass in stride and dunked in rhythm.

“The whole gym went crazy,” Irvin said.

Witherspoon’s AAU development mimics her progression now at Syracuse. The center, who continues to work on her footwork with SU assistant Sasha Palmer, has eight points in 85 minutes and has shot just 2-of-8 from the free-throw line.

For Hillsman, Witherspoon possesses the one attribute coaches can’t coach — athleticism. Witherspoon has had two blocks in a game three times and averages just over a rebound per game.

“When I finally got to play and I started getting more comfortable with the different types of footwork, that’s when (I felt like I could compete in college),” Witherspoon said.

And on the offensive glass, SU forward Taylor Ford said, she’s closer to 6 feet, 9 inches with her arms out.

Then there’s the dunking factor, something that has never been done by an Orange player during Hillsman’s nine-year tenure. On Jan. 29, before Syracuse played then-No. 8 Louisville, Witherspoon showed a glimpse into the future and dunked during the Orange’s pregame warm-up.

“You don’t see a lot of girls dunk,” Ford said. “I think if she were to do that in a game that would be fantastic. I think it would shock us and I think it would definitely shock the other team.”
 
http://dailyorange.com/2015/02/syracuse-looks-to-improve-on-rebounding-front-against-miami/

Syracuse looks to improve on rebounding front against Miami


021215_S_WBB_LarryReidJr_SP.jpg

Larry E. Reid Jr. | Staff Photographer

Taylor Ford and Syracuse will look to improve on the rebounding front when it takes on Miami, as the only sufficient rebounder in the starting lineup is center Briana Day.

By Paul SchwedelsonAsst. copy editor
11 hours ago
Syracuse knows what it needs to work on. During Wednesday morning’s film session, it was one of the primary focal points. And in losses this season, it’s been a key factor.

In the Orange’s last six losses, SU has been outrebounded by an average of eight and a half boards per game, compared to the plus-3.3 margin in wins.

The necessary steps to earn extra possessions are simple, head coach Quentin Hillsman said — just bring energy and effort to box out — but it’s an area Syracuse is still looking to improve.

“We know we need to clean that up,” Hillsman said. “We can’t win games if we don’t rebound the ball.”

No. 23 SU (17-7, 7-4 Atlantic Coast) hosts Miami (16-7, 6-4) on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome and once again, its chances of winning could come down to the rebounding battle. Hillsman has played four guards at once — alongside the ACC’s second-leading rebounder in Briana Day — for a large portion of the season and his defensive tactics have both contributed to Syracuse’s defensive rebounding deficiencies.

The lineup is in place to apply a full-court press on nearly every defensive possession, but the tradeoff results in less rebounds.

“That’s the only thing that it could be, possibly,” Hillsman said of SU’s height disadvantage while explaining the rebounding problems.

The Orange avoided a collapse in its most recent game, a five-point win over Georgia Tech on Sunday, but the Yellow Jackets trimmed SU’s lead from 12 to five in the final four minutes. GT scored five points off five rebounds, which helped spur the comeback.

Only one Syracuse guard had more than three rebounds in the win. But with only one forward on the court at a time, the rebounding burden falls on their shoulders.

“You’re not used to going down there and you see the post down there and it’s really hectic,” senior guard Diamond Henderson said, “and you don’t want to get in the mix, but we have to start getting in the mix.”

In SU’s biggest win of the season, a five-point triumph over then-No. 13 North Carolina last Thursday, UNC was able to get 10 rebounds in the game’s final five minutes. But the Tar Heels only turned that into two points and Syracuse squeaked out the win.

The result came out in Syracuse’s favor, but North Carolina stayed in the game because of its ability to extend possessions. If the Hurricanes do the same on Thursday, the Orange could face its first loss to an unranked opponent.

Part of the reason why SU’s been inefficient on the defensive glass, Henderson said, is because its guards constantly look to leak out in transition. Hillsman’s philosophy is to take as many shots as possible, which means pushing the ball on offense.

“We watch the posts to see what they’re going to do and we get caught watching,” Henderson said, “because we want to get out in transition since we’re a big transition team.”

The Orange has been searching for a second serviceable post player throughout the entire season to complement Day and has yet to find one.

So even as she does her job, SU’s rebounding issues have continued.

“Being a center is a big responsibility to rebound,” Day said, “but all five people on the floor have to rebound.”
 
Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 1m1 minute ago
Here at the Carrier Dome for No. 23 Syracuse WBB (17-7) and unranked Miami. The Hurricanes have beaten N. Dame, Virginia Tech and Virginia.
 
Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 6m6 minutes ago
Brianna Butler receives flowers and a basketball in a pregame ceremony honoring her 1,000th career point.
 
Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 5m5 minutes ago
Quentin Hillsman calls an early 30-second timeout. SU trails 5-0 just 51 seconds in

SU Women's Hoops@CuseWBB · 5m5 minutes ago
Peterson in the lane to put the Orange on the board. 'Cuse in a 3/4 court trap on D.

SU Women's Hoops@CuseWBB · 5m5 minutes ago
Peterson drains a contested three and we're all square at 5 each.

SU Women's Hoops@CuseWBB · 2m2 minutes ago
Butler's three in transition gives the Orange its first lead 8-7 Syracuse.

Syracuse AthleticsCuse · 41s41 seconds ago
U-16 TO: Miami leads @CuseWBB 9-8. Peterson with 5, Butler with 3. 14:54 left in the first half.
 
Brian Higgins‏@BrianHigginsSU 29s29 seconds ago
Briana Day's 2nd foul comes with 11:46 to go in half. Canes leads @CuseWBB 16-12

Brian Higgins‏@BrianHigginsSU 29s29 seconds ago
Briana Day's 2nd foul comes with 11:46 to go in half. Canes leads @CuseWBB 16-12

Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 2m2 minutes ago
Not the greatest of starts for Briana Day. She has 4 turnovers and 2 fouls in nine minutes. SU trails 17-12.
 
Syracuse Athletics‏@Cuse 37s37 seconds ago
U-8 TO: Miami holds a 7-point lead (23-16) over the Orange with 7:37 to play in the half. Butler and Peterson each with 5 to lead SU.

Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 2m2 minutes ago
Bria Day playing better than her sister Briana. Bria has a block & a steal in 4 mins. SU down 23-16 with 7:37 to play in the half.

SU Women's Hoops‏@CuseWBB 2m2 minutes ago
Butler with a step back 3 and Peterson a steal and layup cuts the 'Canes lead to 2.
 
Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 2m2 minutes ago
Quentin Hillsman SLAMS the scorer's table in frustration. Wanted a travel call from the ref. Looks like something flew up.

SU Women's Hoops‏@CuseWBB 1m1 minute ago
Miami on a 6-0 run to open an eight point lead, but Bria Day halts it with a layup of on the other end. 29-23 Miami with 3:52 to play 1st.

Brian Higgins‏@BrianHigginsSU 2m2 minutes ago
Butler and Peterson have combined for 15, but Miami still leads @CuseWBB 29-23 with 3:52 left in half.
 
SU Women's Hoops‏@CuseWBB 8m8 minutes ago
Butler hits a jumper to reach double-figures. She's got 10 with 2:05 left until half and the Orange down 6.

Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 8m8 minutes ago
Don't look now, Brianna Butler is shooting 57.1% (4-of-7) from the field.

SU Women's Hoops‏@CuseWBB 7m7 minutes ago
Hurricanes have their largest lead, 31-21, with 29.3 ticks left until halftime.

Josh Hyber‏@JoshHyber 6m6 minutes ago
At the half, No. 23 Syracuse trails unranked Miami 35-25. The Orange is getting eaten alive inside.
 
SU Women's Hoops‏@CuseWBB 1m1 minute ago
Another three from Butler but the 'Canes get an and-one on the other end to keep the lead at 10.

SU Women's Hoops ‏@CuseWBB 2m2 minutes ago
'Canes open their lead to 12 at 44-32. 16:30 to play.

Syracuse Athletics ‏@Cuse 8s9 seconds ago
U-16 TO: Miami leads @CuseWBB 44-32 with 15:38 to play in the game.
 

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