Taylor Ford reached her right arm behind her back, pretending to pull out an arrow then fire it into the air.  “I got another one,” she said, repeating the motion, “and another one.”

Syracuse guard Brianna Butler had just lined up in the left corner, caught a pass from guard Brittney Sykes and drilled a 3-point shot. Then, Butler knocked the ball away on the press, ran to the right wing behind the arc, caught another pass from Sykes and netted a 3 again.

Like Ford’s imaginary arrows, Syracuse’s 3s just kept coming. Seven long-distance makes in the first quarter alone led to 37 points for the Orange — more than the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley scored all game. Syracuse (10-3) knocked down 14 3-pointers on the day — second-most all-time for the SU — and decimated the Vaqueros (8-7) in a 91-32 win at the Carrier Dome on Friday. The Orange finished non-conference play and will face its first Atlantic Coast Conference opponent in No. 12 Duke (11-3) at 1 pm. on Sunday at home.

“When you look at making 14 3s or you look at making 13 3s that’s a ton of shots,” head coach Quentin Hillsman said, “and that’s a ton of 3-point field goals you put in the books.”

Hillsman wasn’t happy with the way his team started either of the last two games. In the win over Drexel on Dec. 29, it opened the game 1-for-17 and in the win over Howard on Dec. 30, he took out his starters just a minute and a half into the game. In the Drexel game, the Dragons hit 4 3s and held a 22-9 lead over the Orange after one period.

But on Friday, Butler went 4-for-8 from 3-point land in the first quarter en route to a 37-10 first-quarter lead. She finished with five 3s and led the team with 19 points. After the first 10 minutes of play, Syracuse was on pace to score 148 points, shoot 72 3s and make 28 of them.

All but the points would have been NCAA records.

“When we’re hitting 3s in transition we become unguardable,” Sykes said. “And then you get the first quarter like we did.”

Syracuse’s players were consistently open on the wings and in the corners. Off the press, driving teammates would draw defenders into the lane before dishing the ball outside for a triple.  In the half court, SU players ran off screens. Occasionally the wings in UTRGV’s zone would drift away from a Syracuse player that hadn’t left her spot behind the arc all possession.

Prior to the season, assistant coach Vonn Read stressed maximizing the team’s points per possession, Hillsman said, which means taking more 3-pointers.

Friday’s thrashing of UTRGV was the result. By halftime, the Orange was just one conversion shy of its goal to make 10 3s each game.

“It’s really hard to defend a team that shoots a lot of 3s,” Butler said, adding that she doesn’t think any team in the country could keep up with the start SU had to the game.

On the first 3-pointer in the second quarter, Syracuse guard Jade Phillips joined Ford’s celebration, loading the arrows into her fictional quiver. Butler took over archery duties when Ford was on the court.

The more the Orange continued to make 3s the more the players on the bench had to tweak the celebrations.

After Julia Chandler and Maggie Morrison hit back-to-back 3s with 3:30 left in the game, Sykes bent low to the ground, stretched her arm back so her elbow was nearly touching the floor and fired off the last arrow.

Published on January 1, 2016 at 3:51 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus