Women's Basketball

Briana Day scores a career-best 26 points to push Syracuse past Drexel, 83-62

Courtesy of Syracuse Athletic Communications

Briana Day scored 26 points and snagged 13 rebounds in a career day for Syracuse. Her big night compensated for SU's poor shooting performance.

Briana Day crossed her arms and set a pick at the 3-point line for Cornelia Fondren. Day spun into the lane, caught a pass from Fondren and rolled in a right-handed layup.

“Too easy,” someone yelled from the Orange bench as reserve freshman Savannah Crocetti ran to the scorer’s table to check into just her fourth game all season.

Things did look easy for Day. Her basket with 1:24 left accounted for her game-high and career-high 26th point. Her 13 rebounds marked the first time all season she’s been able to break double digits. The junior center salvaged the Orange’s efforts on a night that it struggled to shoot the ball and led Syracuse (8-3) to an 83-62 win over the Drexel Dragons (4-7) in the Carrier Dome.

“Briana Day had a monster game inside,” head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “We knew that if we could get the ball inside to her we had some advantages.”

Syracuse started the game shooting an abysmal 1-for-17 for the floor, ended the first quarter 3-for-21 and faced a 22-9 deficit on the scoreboard. A layup and jumper by Day accounted for two of the baskets. She had five of the team’s nine points.



Starting point guard Alexis Peterson banked shots wide off the backboard, airballed others and even got a ball lodged between the rim and backboard. Brianna Butler, who hardly ever celebrates, was pointing to the sky with one finger every time she made a shot.

Day, meanwhile, ran into the lane off pick-and-rolls for open layups and hit two jumpers outside of the lane. Each Syracuse miss was a chance for an offensive rebound. Day grabbed six and the team totaled 28. Even as everything clicked for her, and her only, Day insisted she “didn’t really do anything that special.”

She muscled her way to the foul line nine times and converted on eight of the shots — another career-high.

“I think she made a conscious effort of coming out, setting screens and rolling hard to the rim,” Hillsman said. “We got her on the (pick-and-roll) move a lot.”

When Syracuse took the lead over Drexel in the third quarter — the first time since SU lead, 4-2 — it was Day who scored 11 of its 29 points.

With 8:10 left in the third, she spotted up at the 3-point line to the right of the basket, drove inside and finger rolled the ball into the net — something guard Brittney Sykes has never seen her do before.

“And on that play she looked me off,” Sykes said after pausing for a few seconds, “So yeah I’m just happy she made the layup.”

Earlier in the season, Day said she wasn’t happy with the way she was rebounding the ball. After a standout sophomore season in which she averaged over 10 rebounds a game, opponents started throwing multiple players at Day to prevent easy rebounds.

But Drexel used just one player taller than 6 feet — forward Jackie Schluth — who Day still had a three-inch advantage over and was able to take advantage of.

“I just went in there and tried to play as hard as I could and I think that’s what worked well for me,” Day said.

The more success she had inside, the more Dragons defense focused on stopping her, which opened the floor for the rest of the Orange and allowed SU to stretch what was once a tie game at halftime into a 21-point win.

As Day, Sykes and Peterson approached their seats at the post-game press conference table, Sykes patted the chair in the middle and said, “Come on double-double,” to Day.

Sykes scanned the box score that lay in front of her with her finger, looked up at Day and gave her thumbs up.

“When you get that kind of productivity,” Hillsman said of Day, “you’re going to have a great game.”





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