One day after being selected to the NCAA Tournament, Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman stood in the lobby of Manley Field House beside the displays of Syracuse’s championship trophies.

Some of the people who brought those championships to Syracuse, like Gary Gait and John Desko, walked by giving a congratulatory nod and smile to Hillsman for his team’s recent accomplishment.

‘It makes you feel really good because when you see people seeing your positive work and see you kind of turn the corner to become one of the top 64 teams in the country it means a lot,’ Hillsman said. ‘Everyone is pulling for you, and everyone wants you to do well. It feels good but we’ve got to go and hold up our end of the bargain and go win our basketball game.’

Syracuse (22-8) will get the opportunity Saturday at 2:30 p.m. as the seventh-seeded Orange faces 10th-seeded Hartford. In its fourth trip ever to the NCAA Tournament, Syracuse was placed in the Oklahoma City bracket and will play in Baton Rouge, La. Texas A&M, the two seed, will play No. 15 Texas-San Antonio, before the Orange’s game. The winners will play Monday.

The game against the Hawks gives the Orange another chance to do what it couldn’t do in the Big East – win in the postseason. Syracuse, a sixth seed in the conference tournament, lost in overtime, 68-67, to 11th-seeded South Florida.

The early exit in the Big East tournament gave the Orange a much longer Spring Break than it would have liked. Hillsman took the time to do some recruiting, but practice didn’t stop.

The players conducted their own practices, and even though Hillsman may not have been present, the intensity was still there. Seniors like Fantasia Goodwin knew there might be another opportunity and didn’t want another early exit in a postseason tournament.

‘A second chance is always good,’ Goodwin said. ‘I think we have the heart of lions on our team. And just to get that second chance, we’re going to take advantage of it.’

The Orange hopes its final destination is Tampa, Fla., the site of the Final Four, but also is well aware it can’t look past a strong Hartford team. Hartford plays in the America East Conference and finished the season 27-5 and 14-2 in conference.

The Hawks devoured its opponents in the America East tournament, winning their three games by 31, 20 and 16 points, respectively. Hartford also won 17 of its last 18 games with an average margin of victory of 17.8 points.

‘I know they’re good, and I know they beat plenty of top teams,’ forward Nicole Michael said. ‘So I know they are good.’

It didn’t take long for Hillsman to alert his team to the fact that Hartford was no slouch on the hardwood. Syracuse’s name barely disappeared off the screen before Hillsman preached to the entire room that Hartford was a very good team, and it was going to be a good game.

Hillsman had to remind his team because, after all, Syracuse is the higher seed and will don the home white uniforms. It’s an amazing feat for a team that was picked to finish 13th in the Big East. Even to some of the players, it’s hard to believe so much progress has been made in only one year.

‘Honestly no, I thought it would have been slowly,’ said Michael when asked if she thought the team was going to make this much progress so quickly. ‘But we just came out with a bang and went or the ultimate goal.’

And the ultimate goal has always been to win a national championship. Even coming into this year, after experiencing a year in which Hillsman said it felt like they had lost 75 games, the most important goal was to add some more hardware to collection at Manley Field House.

‘It’s funny because people want me to shy away,’ Hillsman said. ‘Other head coaches say you’re crazy of talking national championships, but I think if you don’t speak it, you have no chance of getting there.

‘I’m never going to stop preaching winning championships because I think that’s the whole point. We’re standing in this lobby. Look at all these trophies. We want one, so that’s our goal is to win championships.’

mibonner@syr.edu

Published on March 19, 2008 at 12:00 pm