Keith Cieplicki’s face said it all. The head coach of the women’s basketball team looked on in disgust, his face scrunched tightly together. He didn’t even bother to yell, or maybe he just didn’t know what to say.

Cieplicki just took a seat on the bench, choosing to ignore guard Rochelle Coleman’s errant pass. With his Orangewomen already trailing by 24 with 4:57 remaining in the game, Cieplicki had already seen plenty of ugly play.

Notre Dame took advantage of SU’s horrid 23 percent shooting night and easily defeated the Orangewomen, 64-35, last night at Manley Field House in front of 614. The 35-point effort was Syracuse’s lowest total of the season.

‘No one hit any shots,’ senior guard Julie McBride said. ‘If we hit half of the shots we took, it would have been a different story.’

A cold shooting night for Syracuse (6-9, 3-2 Big East) was evident early. SU didn’t get on the board until 16:25 remained in the first half on a 3-pointer by Coleman. A second Coleman 3 closed the gap to 8-6. After tying the game at 8 on a Chineze Nwagbo hoop with 13:48 to play, the Orangewomen hit another extended dry spell, failing to score again until 6:07 remained.

Despite shooting only 20.8 percent in the first half, SU trailed only 28-16 at the break. The 16 points were Syracuse’s second-lowest first-half point total of the season, barely beating its 14-point effort in a 65-43 loss to George Washington on Dec. 4.

Syracuse players and coaches have spoken all season about trying to establish a more consistent first-half offense, something SU did in Saturday’s 55-50 win at Providence. Against the Fighting Irish (10-7, 3-2), though, the Orangewomen resorted back to their old ways. SU has trailed at the half in three of its six wins this season.

Surprisingly, Notre Dame gave Syracuse plenty of open looks and uncontested 3-pointers. The Orangewomen shot 4-of-24 from 3-point range. Fighting Irish head coach Muffet McGraw said her team tried to double McBride and limit her shots. Coming in, Notre Dame intended to limit SU’s 3-point attempts but had some defensive lapses, McGraw said.

‘We were trying to double every now and then off the ball screen, and that left somebody open,’ McGraw said. ‘We just made some mistakes. We had some breakdowns trying to switch on screens and didn’t communicate well and left them open.’

The open shots didn’t seem to matter, though, as the Orangewomen continued to draw iron. But SU’s defense kept it in the game early in the second half. Syracuse set out to contain ND’s leading scorer, Jaqueline Batteast, who averaged 15.9 points. SU held Batteast to just 12 points, but she still managed a double-double in just 28 minutes of action.

With Syracuse’s offense failing to bring it back into the game, Notre Dame built a 20-point lead, 45-25, with less than 11 minutes remaining. The large cushion allowed Batteast to spend most of the second half on the bench, while several other players got into the scoring act. Though only one other player, Courtney LaVere, joined Batteast in double figures, nine others got into the scoring column.

‘In my mind, looking at the fact we’re averaging 57, we gotta try and keep people under 60,’ Cieplicki said. ‘So 64 is not that far off. I thought they got some garbage time points. I mean they’re going for a score with five seconds to go and they’re up 30.’

Despite the 29-point loss, the Orangewomen refused to get down. Cieplicki and McBride both said that Saturday’s home contest against West Virginia is a huge game. The Mountaineers beat Notre Dame, 64-51, on Saturday. McBride emphasized that basketball is a streaky game, and SU will bounce back.

‘It’s a game of streakiness,’ McBride said. ‘Do I like it? No, obviously. I’ve just got to keep shooting. I’m going to keep shooting, and I don’t care what people say. They can say I shoot too much. I need to shoot for us to win. Not just me but everybody.’

Published on January 21, 2004 at 12:00 pm