Connecticut guard Tiffany Hayes walked to the podium, scraped and bruised, with a cut on her lip. In a physical Big East game, Hayes experienced her share of rough play on the court. After all, standing next to her was teammate Maya Moore, fully draped with ice bags on both knees.

But all anyone wanted to talk about was that bruise on her lip, the result of the second chippy exchange between the Syracuse and Connecticut women’s basketball teams in their last two meetings. The one cut that kept momentum in the Huskies’ favor as SU succumbed to an 88-67 loss, and the one cut that might have a much bigger effect on the outcome of the Orange’s postseason hopes.

It was the result of a bang-bang play between Hayes and SU junior guard Erica Morrow. And after referees conferred and determined that Morrow took a swing at Hayes immediately following the play, she was ejected from the game with 12 minutes remaining.

And with that testy exchange, the Orange may have hit a big dent in its hopes to return to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years. According to NCAA rules, Morrow will be suspended for SU’s next game, a crucial road contest at DePaul.

‘Basically, we were both scrapping for the ball,’ Hayes said. ‘I had my hands on the ball, and her head moved some type of way and my head moved some type of way. I guess she thought I did it on purpose.’

With the Huskies holding a comfortable 21-point advantage, the referees went to the monitor after the affair. Both going for the ball, Morrow and Hayes appeared to bang heads. Shortly thereafter, Morrow appeared to take a swing at Hayes. And the refs saw enough to throw Morrow out of the game for fighting.

Morrow wasn’t made available to the media following the game, but SU head coach Quentin Hillsman blamed her reaction on overall frustration.

‘It’s just one of those things where she’s a competitor,’ Hillsman said. ‘When you play as hard as she plays, and she brings it every night, at some point you finally let things simmer.’

Hillsman said he briefly talked to Morrow about the incident after the game, and she expressed remorse for her actions, mostly because she had to watch as Connecticut dominated the rest of the way with her in the locker room. In the four minutes after Morrow was ejected, the Huskies used a 13-4 run to build a 30-point lead.

‘I talked to her about it,’ Hillsman said. ‘She’s very disappointed in what happened. She was very down on not being able to be on the floor at the end of the game.’

And with the occurrence between Hayes and Morrow, the Orange and the Huskies had their second touchy episode in as many meetings.

In the teams’ last meeting on Jan. 19, 2009, after SU suffered a 53-point loss to the No. 1 Huskies, Syracuse forward Nicole Michael appeared to trip Connecticut head coach Geno Auriemma during postgame handshakes.

Auriemma yelled back at Michael before the two were taken off the court by their respective coaches and teammates.

SU forward Juanita Ward and Huskies guard Caroline Doty also got into it that game, and Ward was charged with a technical foul after she elbowed Doty in the face.

But Auriemma pleaded innocent this time. He wasn’t involved, and he said he didn’t see it, either.

‘I just saw Tiffany (Hayes) come out of there holding her face and there was blood,’ Auriemma said, holding the right side of his face to mimic Hayes’ reaction. ‘And then I heard somebody on the bench say, ‘I think she got punched.’

‘I never saw it. I didn’t see anything.’

But Hayes didn’t seem to harbor any hard feelings toward Morrow. She knew it would be a physical game, and she said she expected the Orange to give the Huskies a fight.

Just maybe not a literal fight.

‘I guess she thought I did it on purpose because she took a swing at me,’ Hayes said. ‘But I think the game was well-played. We knew we were going to come here and they were going to give us a fight, but I think the team did a nice job of getting the job done.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on February 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm