Julie McBride drove to the basket, jump-stopped and banked her first basket of the game. Finally, after being held scoreless for the first 15 minutes of the Syracuse women’s basketball team’s game against Connecticut, the senior guard and the Orangewomen’s leading scorer had entered the scoring column – or so she thought.

When the whistle blew, no one in Manley Field House could believe the foul would be called on McBride. It looked like a sure 3-point play opportunity. But to the disgust of the season-high 3,442 fans and the SU bench, a charging foul was called on McBride, nullifying her apparent basket.

That’s the way the things went for McBride and the Orangewomen, as the No. 2 Huskies eviscerated Syracuse, 82-38, last night. Syracuse has lost seven games in a row and has not won since a 55-50 victory over Providence on Jan. 17.

‘I told the kids before the game that there was a huge, huge advantage between us and Syracuse,’ UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. ‘Huge, talentwise, sizewise, everything. Their roster’s depleted. They’re struggling. We didn’t want to go out there and say, ‘Well, what did we do up at Syracuse? Oh, we won the game and that was about it, and we didn’t do anything well.’

‘We accomplished about all the goals I gave them for the game. And we managed to do it without embarrassing a group of kids that are really struggling right now.’

The heavily favored Huskies (19-2, 9-1 Big East) actually let Syracuse (6-15, 3-8) hang with them for the early part of the first half. UConn missed its first six 3-point attempts. Senior guard and National Player of the Year candidate Diana Taurasi scored only 10 points on 3-for-10 shooting for the Huskies.

SU took the first lead on a Sarah Wegrzynowicz putback off of a McBride miss. After UConn took a 5-2 lead, Rochelle Coleman evened the game at 5 on a 3-pointer. The Orangewomen trailed by only nine points with 8:41 remaining in the first half. After that point, Syracuse never came close to the Huskies again. UConn rattled off a 25-6 run to close the half with a 43-15 lead.

‘(Manley Field House) is a very difficult place to shoot the ball,’ Auriemma said. ‘The sit lines here are much different than any other place in the league. There’s a lot of empty space behind the baskets, so it takes a little while to get your bearings. I thought it was going to be one of those days where we were going to miss everything and have to grind it out. I figured we’d go into halftime up 19-17.’

The same problems – poor rebounding, too many turnovers and an inability to score – that have plagued SU over its seven-game losing streak, doomed the Orangewomen once again.

Though SU still ranks second in the Big East at 13.5 turnovers per contest, the Orangewomen’s turnovers have gone up dramatically of late, averaging 16.8 over their last five games.

‘We just have to focus on taking care of the ball every possession,’ McBride said. ‘Just make good passes and make the right ones.’

Once again, Syracuse failed to establish any offensive rhythm in the first half, appearing seemingly lost against the bigger, more talented Huskies. The only first-half offensive presence for SU came from freshman Tracy Harbut, who scored 10 points despite playing in just her ninth game because of her 10-game suspension.

Both McBride and Syracuse head coach Keith Cieplicki attributed SU’s scoring problems to UConn’s superior defense. The Huskies are second in the conference, giving up just 54.7 points per contest. That didn’t bode well for an SU offense that averages a conference-worst 54.2 points and has scored less points in its last two games – 71 – than UConn scored against the Orangewomen last night.

‘It’s (UConn’s) athleticism (that makes its defense so good),’ Cieplicki said. ‘They can switch players, and sometimes when they switch they actually get better. They’ve got so many athletes with size and range.’

Published on February 11, 2004 at 12:00 pm