The way Rick Moody sees it, all the great ones have had critical blunders that have cost their teams a game.

Jordan. Kobe. Even the best can make a mistake when the game is on the line.

‘If you’re not willing to take a risk when the game’s on the line,’ said Moody, SU women’s basketball assistant coach, ‘then you’re never going to be quite the player that you’re capable of being. That goes for Kobe and Michael and all the great players on their teams.’

For Moody and the Orange, the player they want handling the ball with the game hanging in the balance is Erica Morrow. After a series of subpar games from the junior guard ended with a critical last-second blunder against St. John’s, Morrow has returned to her usual standards and responded with two solid games in a row.

Syracuse (17-5, 4-5 Big East) hopes to capture its second straight victory against Marquette (13-8, 4-4 Big East) Saturday at 1 p.m. inside the Carrier Dome. And if SU is planning for another victory, it will need Morrow to continue her strong play over the past couple of games.

Of course, Morrow doesn’t want to put all the pressure on herself.

‘There are other players on the team,’ she said after the Orange’s loss to Notre Dame last Saturday. ‘When I’m not on, we’ve got 15 other girls.’

But the connection is there, and her stats stick out like a sore thumb in correlation to SU’s result on any given day.

Before Big East play, as the Orange roared out of the gate to a program-best 12-0 start, Morrow was right in the middle of it. She was scoring 12.6 points per game, hitting 1.4 3-pointers a game and nailing 80 percent of her free throws. She was named the MVP of the Cancun Classic.

‘We have one of the toughest conferences in the country,’ Morrow said back in early December, as she was named Big East Player of the Week after her performance in Cancun. ‘And just to be named Player of the Week actually means I’m doing a pretty good job, so it’s a confidence booster.’

Then came the struggles, most notably a three-game stretch in which she had one great game and two of arguably the worst performances of her career. The first of those games, at Providence, she took only one shot, ended up with one point and turned the ball over four times.

After a 23-point performance against Louisville, Morrow reverted back to her struggles, culminating in the team’s narrow loss to St. John’s.

‘There’s no doubt that when Erica plays well we’re a much better basketball team,’ Moody said. ‘She has proven herself to be very, very capable in the past. Erica brings so much more to our team.’

If the Providence game was a case of Morrow just not being aggressive, the contest with the Red Storm might have been a situation where she was too assertive and too carefree.

She missed all six of her shots from the field, finishing with a goose egg in the scoring column of her box score. And she made the one mistake that ultimately gave St. John’s the lead, and the win.

With SU clinging to a 65-64 lead with 11 seconds left in the game, St. John’s Nadirah McKenith stripped Morrow. The ball was eventually scooped up by Shennieka Smith, who raced down the court and was fouled, and the two free throws that proved to be the winning margin.

‘Anytime you lose the ball at the end of the game like that you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders,’ Moody said. ‘I talked to her one day (after the game), and I told her that if you’re going to be a great player, you have to accept the fact that you are a risk-taker.’

But she has responded over the last two games, scoring 23 points and grabbing a surprising 14 rebounds against Notre Dame and Pittsburgh.

‘I was a little more aggressive,’ Morrow said. ‘But I was trying to relax a bit. I was trying to relax and let it come to me, not try to force it.’

It’s a strategy she hopes to continue Saturday. Still, Moody, head coach Quentin Hillsman and the rest of the Orange have no less confidence in her, whatever the case.

They all want the ball in her hands.

‘You have to understand that it’s not always going to work out,’ Moody said. ‘At times you could fail. You can’t be afraid of failure. And that’s been the greatest thing I’ve noticed, that she has continued to come back and is not afraid to put herself back in that situation.’

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on February 3, 2010 at 12:00 pm