Looking at the stat sheet, Quentin Hillsman saw a dominant performance from his team Tuesday night.

The Syracuse women’s basketball team overwhelmed Villanova in almost every single statistical category. The one stat the Orange didn’t dominate, though, cost them the game.

It’s not always easy for a coach to point to one area on the box score as the reason for a loss. But to Hillsman, it was simple on Tuesday.

Three-point shooting. The Wildcats (12-11, 1-9 Big East) came into The Pavilion on fire, taking 27 shots from beyond the arc and making 13 of them, riding that statistic to an 83-69 win over Syracuse (18-6, 5-6) in front of a crowd of 379.

‘You have to give them credit,’ Hillsman said in a telephone interview after the game. ‘They came out, and they made shots. They were on fire.’

It was an unconventional loss that left an especially bitter taste in Hillsman’s mouth. And it’s hard to blame him, seeing how SU did not struggle against the Wildcats with things it has struggled with all year.

Syracuse only turned over the ball eight times in Tuesday night’s contest, five fewer than its season-low of 12 in a single game. That turned into a 17-8 advantage in points off turnovers.

The Orange dominated on the glass, out-rebounding Villanova 49-33. And that number was especially magnified on the offensive boards, where SU held a 20-1 advantage. Its rebounding numbers helped Syracuse maintain a 22-1 edge on second-chance points.

And SU also controlled bench points, leading that category 21-4.

‘Yeah, it’s definitely a bit of bad luck,’ Hillsman said. ‘It’s hard to explain when you have players out there who normally don’t make a lot of 3’s, and they’re out there draining 3’s on you. We won almost every category.’

But the one area where Villanova held the advantage won the Wildcats the game. Coming into the game against SU, the Wildcats shot only 28.4 percent on 3-pointers and hit 7.6 shots from beyond the arc per game.

But on Tuesday, they lit up The Pavilion. They shot 48 percent (13-of-27), and it led them to their highest point total of the season. In fact, it was the first time in 63 games that Villanova scored at least 70 points.

‘Again, you just have to give them a lot of credit,’ Hillsman said. ‘They came in averaging about seven 3’s a game, and they just made shots today.’

Hillsman did everything he could to stop this trend early. Villanova took its first eight shots from beyond the arc and hit five of them.

So Hillsman constantly changed up his defensive look. The Orange played zone. It played man. Full-court press and three-quarter-court press. Half-court trap.

You name it, they probably played it. But to no avail.

‘We did everything,’ Hillsman said. ‘We played zone, we played man, we pressed them. We used our whole defensive package against them. We did everything we could to get them out of their rhythm.’

In that same area, the Orange weren’t nearly as successful. SU shot only 3-of-14 from beyond the arc (21.4 percent), failing to match Villanova’s proficiency.

After the Wildcats had built a comfortable lead through the 3-point shot, they finished the game from a different line – the free-throw line. Villanova’s last 22 points came via the charity stripe, and the Wildcats made all but two of those freebies down the stretch.

‘They made their free throws,’ Hillsman said. ‘When you make your free throws like that and your 3-pointers, it’s tough to overcome that.’

To Hillsman, the unconventional loss was a roadblock in his goal to get to 10 conference wins. The Orange will need to win out to reach that number, and it still has games at Rutgers and at home against No. 1 Connecticut and No. 9 West Virginia.

Still, the SU coach isn’t going to change anything drastically after Tuesday’s performance.

‘I really believe that if we dominate every stat like we did tonight,’ Hillsman said, ‘we always should win the basketball game.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on February 9, 2010 at 12:00 pm