Syracuse’s offensive game plans this season have been primarily centered around the 3-point shot. At the team’s media availability last Wednesday, SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said that one of the Orange’s goals is to make 10 3s a game, or as many as its opponent.

But soon after Sunday afternoon’s game against University of Maryland Baltimore County began, Syracuse realized it would have to stray away from what it knows best. Through eight games, SU ranked eighth in the country on 251 3-point attempts — an average of 31.4 per game — but Digna Strautmane was the only SU player to connect in the first 16 minutes against the Retrievers. Emily Engstler and Kiara Lewis went a combined 0-for-8 from the field in the first quarter. So the Orange had to go elsewhere for scoring.

Despite Syracuse’s (5-4) struggles from the low block this season, that’s where it went. The Orange scored 40 points in the paint to dominate UMBC (2-7), 82-48, in the Carrier Dome, snapping its first three-game skid since the 2013-14 season. Center Amaya Finklea-Guity spearheaded the attack down low, posting 13 points and seven rebounds (three offensive). Most of SU’s 24 points in the paint in the second half came from guards Lewis and Teisha Hyman getting picks and driving to the hoop.

“We got our post players at the midline posting up with some duck-ins,” Hillsman said. “Any time we can get our players playing at the rim, playing at the mid-line, we got a chance to be pretty good.” 

Finklea-Guity’s best performances of the season have come in her last two games. At No. 24 Michigan on Thursday, she had a season-best 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting and converted her easy looks, something she struggled to do during the opening stretch of the season. Prior to Thursday’s game against Michigan, Finklea-Guity was shooting 43.6 percent from the field despite the majority of her shots coming in the paint. SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said she was “just missing shots.”

On two of SU’s first three possessions Sunday, the ball went to Finklea-Guity. After mishandling the ball and turning it over her first time, she drilled a turnaround jump hook next time down the floor. Less than two minutes later, she received the ball turned away from the basket again, backed into UMBC’s Eryn Fisher and scooped in an easy layup. Finklea-Guity’s 6-foot-4 frame made her the tallest player on either roster, and she was using it to her advantage.

“Amaya’s really getting to that midline and posting up tough,” Hillsman said. “She’s starting to really understand, that when she gets the ball, stop looking to pass, look to score. That’s been big for her. We’ve been telling her, ‘Just get the ball, turn over that shoulder and shoot the ball.’”

Finklea-Guity averaged 16.8 minutes per game heading into Sunday, as she usually splits time with Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi. But Djaldi-Tabdi picked up four fouls in six minutes, forcing Hillsman to keep Finklea-Guity in the game. The Dorchester, Massachusetts native played nearly 14 minutes in the first half alone, logging nine points on 4-for-6 shooting and drawing five fouls.

The second half wasn’t as much about Finklea-Guity’s power as it was the Retrievers’ porous defense. Lewis said the formula to get to the basket was simple ― bigs setting screens that UMBC players went under, giving SU’s guards a clear driving lane to the hoop. If an opposing defender collapsed, Finklea-Guity or Whisper Fisher was open for a layup. If not, the guard would settle for a layup or floater.

“If they come out, you just dump it off to a post player,” Lewis said. “We have players over six feet, so that was a big advantage we had.”

With less than six minutes remaining in the game, Hyman snatched a defensive rebound and took the ball straight to the rim, euro-stepping around UMBC’s O’lesheya Braxton and dropping in a reverse layup. Less than 30 seconds later, Lewis and Fisher ran a pick-and-roll that ended in a wide-open layup for Fisher.

At that point, the Orange’s 0-for-8 clip from 3-point range in the fourth quarter didn’t matter. Neither did Engstler’s 0-for-11 shooting or Brooke Alexander and Taleah Washington’s combined 0-for-8 performance from the field. Hyman finished with 16 points and Fisher with six points, both season-highs. SU needed to win comfortably to bounce back from a three-game losing streak, and it did so with a strategy that hadn’t worked in previous games. 

“We didn’t come out real crisp,” Hillsman said. “But I thought in the second half, we got our legs under us and played well.”

Published on December 8, 2019 at 6:54 pm

Contact David: ddschnei@syr.edu