Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Women's Basketball

The men's team brought in arguably one of the best, if not the best recruiting class in the nation, but we cannot forget the ladies.

Coach Quentin Hillsman has spent the last several years recruiting the nation's best women's basketball players. His work has resulted in the incoming class that was ranked 11th. It included standouts Erica Morrow, Tasha Harris, Chandrea Jones, Vionca Murray. This year's class announced this week is ranked 13th in the country. The class includes four top 60 players and the 30th best Junior college transfer. The seniors, rank, and highschool: Tyler Ash, 24th, Liverpool in Syracuse. Shakeya Leary, 54th, New York City. Lynnae Lampkins, 58th, Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Troya Berry, 59th, Flint. The Junior college transfer is Lynnise Nixon from Philadelphia.

I personally am very exciting for the future of Syracuse women's basketball. This program is clearly on the rise. Coach Q has this team headed in the right direction. It clearly showed at Midnight Madness. They showed a great ability to shoot and score.

The team started off the season by squeaking out a win over Coppin State, but in their second game, they were beaten pretty badly by 6th ranked UNC 97-72. The Orange can take many things out of that game. First, they hit free-throws, draining 25 of 29 shots. I had live stats up the entire game from collegesportstv and noticed the 'Cuse was outrebounding UNC the majority of the game. The Orange finished down 8 in rebounds, but showed great poise on the boards hauling in 24 offensive rebounds. The ladies also forced 27 UNC turnovers. The Orange shot just 29% for the game and 20% in the first half which was the major difference. If they shoot even 30% in the first half and 35% for the game, this is easily just a 10-15 game. To me, that is making great strides for a program that historically has rarely ever been able to complete with top notch programs.

The ladies are back in action Sunday against my hometown college of Bethlehem: Lehigh Mountain Hawks. Last year Syracuse went to Stabler Arena and lost a close game. Expect this year to be much different in Manley Field House.

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