If they see enough playing time throughout the season, freshman basketball players become sophomores before the academic record says so.

The Syracuse women’s basketball team has four girls who are approaching that sophomore status in a brutal Big East Conference. Jessica Richter and Vaida Sipaviciute have been mainstays in the starting lineup while first-year classmates, Mary Joe Riley and Amanda Adamson have had several starts too.

Those four will look to take control from the 2 p.m. opening tip Saturday at Manley Field House against Boston College.

‘In terms of playing together and playing hard, we’re doing a great job,’ senior forward Chineze Nwagbo said. ‘We’re talking, doing the things we need to do collectively as a team.’

The Orange (11-11, 3-8 Big East) has five remaining regular season games entering Saturday’s contest. Three of those games are against Rutgers, Connecticut and BC – three of the top four teams in the Big East standings. Entering that stretch, the Orange has not helped itself with three straight losses.

The Orange is currently one place out of the Big East cellar, ahead of only Providence. But an upset win next week, coupled with closing games against comparable foes, Seton Hall and Georgetown, could give the Orange a middle-of-the-pack seed in the conference tournament.

SU will need to continue its scoring-by-committee and overall collective approach to compete with an Eagles team that has also suffered three consecutive setbacks in league play.

Nwagbo could prove to be the deciding factor against BC (15-6, 6-4). She takes a burden off Sipaviciute’s shoulders in the post and has solid passing skills out of double teams. In SU’s most recent loss at Villanova, she only tallied six points in 18 minutes of action. With a productive Nwagbo, senior Rochelle Coleman, Richter, Riley, and sophomore Lauren Kohn can benefit greatly, and give the Orange the offensive balance it needs against No. 22 BC.

‘We play to win every game no matter if they’re ranked or unranked,’ Coleman said. ‘We just go out and play hard and hope to get a win. We need to keep our turnovers down and execute our offense.’

If the Orange can do just that, it could lead to two things. First, it could jumpstart the program against one of three conference powerhouses – SU lost by only eight points on the road against Rutgers. Even better, it means that the freshman will have beaten the maturity cycle and play like anything but wide-eyed rookies. With that development, head coach Keith Cieplicki thinks the wins can come, regardless of if SU is at Manley.

‘When you play good defense and you shoot lay-ups,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter where you are. Those are the things I’m really trying to establish with this group and why the inside game is so important and defense is so important. As long as you have those two things, sooner or later you’re going to make some shots. If not, you’re never going to win.’

Published on February 9, 2005 at 12:00 pm