Everything had changed so quickly.

Syracuse, once holding a comfortable seven-point lead with under five minutes remaining against Marquette, saw its lead shrink down to just two. Memories of the team’s last two home games – where SU blew late second-half leads – crept back into view.

But just like so many times before, Carmen Tyson-Thomas was there for the rescue. The freshman guard halted Marquette’s 5-0 run, pulling up and smoothly stroking a clutch jumper to push SU’s lead to 59-55.

‘I try not to think about the situation,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘I just have to play hard. I wasn’t really thinking about the score.’

And with that jumper, Marquette never recovered, as the Orange pulled away to a 69-60 victory in front of a crowd of 995 inside the Carrier Dome Saturday.

On the strength of Tyson-Thomas’ second-half play, SU (18-5, 5-5 Big East) did its best to erase any thoughts of its past two home games, heartbreaking losses to St. John’s and No. 3 Notre Dame, by a combined four points. Tyson-Thomas finished the contest with a career-high 14 points and nine rebounds, also adding two assists in 22 minutes of action.

‘It feels great (to get a win),’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘We’re going to try to keep this thing rolling. It feels really good.’

The game was a contrasting two halves for both the Orange and Tyson-Thomas. The Philadelphia native played nine minutes in the first but picked up her second foul with just over eight minutes remaining, relegating her to the bench for most of the half. She missed both of her attempts from the field and was part of the Orange’s sloppy first-half play, contributing two of its eye-popping 17 turnovers.

With that shoddy play, Syracuse found itself trailing the Golden Eagles (13-9, 4-5 Big East) 28-23 at the half in a conference home game the Orange couldn’t afford to lose.

‘We needed to do something different,’ senior forward Juanita Ward said of her team’s halftime adjustments. ‘The first half wasn’t so good, so we really just had to start picking it up and start playing better.’

What a difference a half makes.

Ward and Nicole Michael combined for 14 of the Orange’s first 16 points in the second half, getting SU out to a 39-37 lead.

In came Tyson-Thomas. And she made her presence felt for the rest of the half.

Immediately, she brought down one of her nine rebounds, bringing the ball up the court and finding guard Tasha Harris on the right side for an open 3-pointer.

She rebounded the ball on her first three defensive possessions in the second half, finding the outlet or taking the ball up the court herself to start SU’s fast-break attack.

‘She is a complete player,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said of Tyson-Thomas. ‘She is a very good shooter and a very good rebounder. She’s going to do some good things.’

And after her presence on the glass was felt, she took over in the scoring column as well.

She didn’t score a point the first 30 minutes of the game. Then, at the 10-minute mark of the second half, she got the ball on the block, spun and hit a short jumper. The next possession, she found her stroke from beyond the arc. And two possessions later, she hit another 3-pointer to give the Orange an eight-point advantage.

‘Carmen is a really good shooter,’ Ward said. ‘A lot of people misjudge her. People tend to take her for granted because she is a freshman, but she is a really good player. She can post up down low, she can shoot the 3, take you off the drive and she can play point guard.’

After SU had built up a 57-50 lead, it started getting time-conscious. Harris or Erica Morrow would hold the ball for the length of the shot clock, and the Orange found itself taking desperate shots at the end of possessions.

Tyson-Thomas’ final act was bucking that trend, taking the ball, dribbling into the lane and firing up a jumper that found the bottom of the net and gave SU the four-point lead.

But she doesn’t think this is her best act. That, she said, is still to come.

‘I did a little something (today),’ she said. ‘Nothing special yet. It’s coming, though.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on February 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm