With three seconds remaining in the second half and Syracuse clinging to a three-point lead, Carmen Tyson-Thomas made another crucial play to preserve a victory.

As Xavier looked to inbound the ball and get it up the court for one final desperation attempt, the SU guard deflected the inbounds pass right back to Musketeers’ guard Lynette Holmes. She was standing out of bounds, causing a turnover and sealing the win for SU.

‘It’s a quality win,’ Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘That’s what you need to do, you need to get quality wins and then move forward. For us, that was everything to come out of here and to play quality opponents and get quality wins and we got one down and hopefully we can get two more.’

In a tight contest, Syracuse (8-3) bent but never broke, hanging on to defeat Xavier (3-6) 70-67 in the first of three games for SU at the Duel in the Desert in Las Vegas on Sunday. SU led by a slim margin for the entire second half, but Xavier made one final push late in the half to try and steal a win. That’s when Tyson-Thomas turned the Musketeers away.

The Orange thwarted countless Xavier comeback attempts late in the game. In the final 10 minutes, Xavier cut SU’s lead to three points or fewer on five separate occasions. Each time the Orange responded with points of its own on the opposite end of the floor.

And despite yet another poor shooting performance hitting on just 21-of-67 attempts (31.3 percent) from the field, the Orange was able to sustain its lead by limiting its mistakes.

‘We took care of the ball,’ Hillsman said. ‘We had 13 turnovers and a couple of them were just offensive foul turnovers, so overall I think it was just about taking care of the ball.’

Down the stretch the Orange scored eight of its final 10 points at the free-throw line to overcome its own shooting deficiencies. Even though Xavier shot 38.5 percent from the field, Syracuse scored 14 more points than the Musketeers did from the stripe.

Hillsman said the number of attempts from the free-throw line could be attributed to the team’s efforts to get the ball inside. SU’s top three scorers got to the free-throw line six or more times.

Center Kayla Alexander had 15 points, with seven of those coming from the free-throw line. Tyson-Thomas had a game-high 18 points and 10 rebounds, picking up her second double-double of the season, and forward Iasia Hemingway added 17 points and shot 7-of-10 from the line.

‘We knew if we got the ball inside they would be out in the high post, they would double-team from the weak side,’ Hillsman said, ‘so our game plan was to go on the court and just to get the ball inside and be physical and aggressive at the rim.’

adtredin@syr.edu 

Published on December 18, 2011 at 12:00 pm