HAMILTON, N.Y. – Going in the game against Colgate – an opponent to whom Syracuse has never lost – SU head coach Quentin Hillsman had high expectations. He told his team the goal for the game was to hold its opponent to fewer than 30 points.

The Orange beat Colgate, 75-26. Mission accomplished.

Those 26 points make the lowest total allowed by Syracuse since it beat Oneonta, 71-25, on Dec. 9, 1978.

To prevent the Raiders from running their offense the way they would have liked, Syracuse always had someone on Colgate’s most dangerous player, freshman Sami Kozlowski. Regardless of where Kozlowski was on the court, Erica Morrow, Marisa Gobuty and sometimes Cintia Johnson always had the Colgate guard in their sights.

‘She was their best player,’ Hillsman said. ‘So we wanted to kind of get after her and wear her down a little bit and not get her in a situation where she’s controlling the game.’

The defense didn’t only come up big against Kozlowski, either. Syracuse forced 21 turnovers, 15 of which came via steals. The most steals the Orange had in any game last season was 11.

When the Orange wasn’t swiping the ball, it was defending the shots put up by Colgate. The Raiders didn’t make one 3-pointer in 13 attempts and only made a total of eight field goals the entire game. In total, Colgate shot 8-of-51, which equates to 15.7 percent.

Neither team really started well enough to get in any type of rhythm, nevermind control the game. Colgate didn’t score its first point until the 15:36 mark of the first half. It wasn’t until about four minutes into the game that the Orange finally got on the board. Three more minutes passed until SU made a field goal at the 13:57 mark.

‘More than anything else, we wanted to defend them,’ Hillsman said ‘It really wasn’t about how many points we scored, it was more about how many points they scored.’

For the most part, Morrow and Gobuty had the onus of guarding Kozlowski. Going into the game, Kozlowski was second among freshmen in the Patriot League in scoring, field goal percentage and assists. Throughout the game, Syracuse frustrated the freshman guard with a full-court, man defense.

‘Coach told us that we had to do it,’ Morrow said. ‘It was a few of us, mostly the guards, that we had to guard her full court, and that was a part of our game plan. And we just went out and executed.’

Coming off a game in which she tied a career high with 18 points, Kozlowski finished the game with only four points on 2-of-11 shooting. She went 0-for-3 from beyond the arc. The shooting woes bled into Kozlowski’s inability to take care of the basketball. She finished the game with a team-high five turnovers.

The four points was the second-lowest output of the season for Kozlowski. Her worst performance of the season came against No. 15 Ohio State, when she found the bottom of the net once for three points.

‘Coach just told us that we had to play tough defense on the ball,’ Gobuty said. ‘I just came in and tried to do my best and guard her tough, fight over screens and just try to defend her best.’

Since the defensive strategy called for a full court press – even though the press only consisted of guarding one player – a lot of energy was expanded. The Orange played 12 players in the game, rotating them in and out throughout the game to keep them fresh.

‘We wanted to play everybody in the first half and see if we could really get out and play the style we wanted to play,’ Hillsman said. ‘We just got after them really good.’

The performance from the entire team helped in holding the Raiders’ team field goal percentage to 16 percent. But the players didn’t push themselves more than usual just because they knew subs were available.

‘I mean, that helps, but Coach doesn’t allow us to do anything else but play hard,’ Morrow said. ‘So we all just go out and play hard.’

Published on November 28, 2007 at 12:00 pm