In a two-minute span of the first quarter, Syracuse tracked down seven offensive rebounds. Missed 3s, clunked floaters and rimmed-out layups all seemed to get vacuumed up by someone in a white jersey.

“This week during practice we’ve been working on rebounding and how important it is for this game,” redshirt junior forward Miranda Drummond said, “so I guess we just used a few of the things we learned this week.”

In Syracuse’s (1-0) 95-68 season-opening win over Morgan State (0-1), the Orange grabbed 31 offensive boards. At halftime, the Orange had plucked 19 offensive rebounds to the Bears’ 13 defensive rebounds. When SU missed a shot in the first half, it was more likely that it came up with the miss than its opponent. The Orange’s strength on the glasses allowed it to control the game even though it shot 16.7 percent from beyond the arc, 53.6 percent the free throw line and just 42 percent from the field.

“Adeniyi Amadou is our rebounding coach,” head coach Quentin Hillsman said, “and he really stays on them about rebounding and obviously that’s paying off.”

The rebounds generally came in two distinct ways: a player streaking from the outside or one of the bigs — particularly freshman Digna Strautmane — snatching the ball from above a crowd.

Drummond excelled at the former, gathering six offensive boards by following her and others’ shots to the rim and corralling them for putback attempts or passes to more open teammates.

“Just find a body,” Drummond said.

Strautmane, who had six offensive boards as well, along with fellow freshman and five-star recruit Amaya Finklea-Guity, used their 6-foot-plus frames and long arms to either catch the ball above would-be Morgan State rebounders or tip the ball to themselves or an awaiting guard.

Altogether, the wide gap in rebounding let SU score 29 second-chance points and gain, effectively, 31 possessions it otherwise wouldn’t have had. This plays perfectly into the style of basketball Hillsman wants to play.

After the game, he preached how SU won, and will continue to win, by having about 25 to 30 more possession that its opponent on a given night.

“We drill them over and over again,” Hillsman said, “’You have to go to the glass,’ and obviously that’s paying off.”

So when Syracuse’s shooters struggled to get hot Friday, netting 37 of 88 shots, rebounders turned what would otherwise have been lost possessions into second chances.

Also key, players and Hillsman said, was boxing out. Strautmane and Finklea-Guity excelled at this, usually finding themselves with clear lanes to the basket due to a combination of size and positioning.

And even with their length and reaching over people, the two bigs managed to largely avoid costly over-the-back fouls.

“When you play against a team that’s a little undersized you get some opportunities,” Hillsman said, “but (Strautmane and Finklea-Guity) did a great job of keeping their hands up high and going to get them so they weren’t pushes in the back.”

The offensive rebounds often came in spurts, too. During a 24-second sequence late in the third quarter, Syracuse bricked two-straight shots, but followed them with two-straight rebounds. First, Strautmane grabbed a board and when her putback attempt rolled over the iron, Jasmine Nwajei swooped in from the right wing and pulled the ball away from a Morgan State player.

After a few passes, Strautmane’s board was rewarded when she knocked down a midrange jumper.

“We can reverse the ball quickly and get a shot up,” Hillsman said. “And once we get a shot up, we’ve got to box out again.”

Published on November 10, 2017 at 5:25 pm

Contact Andrew: aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham