Alexis Peterson held the ball near midcourt as the third quarter wound down to its final seconds. “Be ready to shoot, Mags,” she yelled, letting everyone in the stadium know where the ball would go for the last shot. “Gotta be ready to shoot.”

Peterson passed to Maggie Morrison with about four seconds remaining, who then dribbled from right to left across the top of the key and pulled up to hit a jumper at the buzzer.

Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman stormed onto the court and wrapped Morrison up in a hug. The rest of the team followed and engulfed her in a mob of cheering players.

“Out of body,” Morrison said. “It was just out of body today. It was just one of those days where you get hot and you’re just shooting everything and it’s going in.

“I might have shot one with my eyes closed today and it would’ve gone in.”

Morrison was the unlikely hero in Syracuse’s (11-3, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) 86-50 shocking win over No. 12 Duke (11-4, 0-1) in the Carrier Dome on Sunday. SU’s fifth player off the bench erupted for a career-high 25 points, going 7-for-12 from 3-point land. She picked up five steals on the defensive end and even had a block in what Hillsman said was “probably” the best shooting performance an Orange player had all season.

“You got to give Maggie Morrison a ton of credit,” Hillsman said. “She came in and made a ton of shots.”

Morrison had made more than one 3-pointer in a game just once this season. She came in averaging just over 12 minutes and five points per game — bloated by a 14-point performance in a blowout of Howard on Wednesday.

In the first quarter Morrison was a nonfactor, not coming in until the final 41 seconds. But on SU’s first possession of the second quarter, it was a 3 from the right corner. A few minutes later, she went back the same spot and salvaged an SU possession with a 3 as the shot clock expired.

“We all knew that No. 4 …,” Duke head coach Joanna P. McCallie said, pausing to find the right name on the box score, “Morrison was a shooter, but not to that extent. That was a beautiful game for her and she was the difference maker.”

By the third 3, Morrison knew it was going to “one of those days.” Usually things start to “go downhill” after her third made 3-pointer, but that never happened on Sunday.

Morrison was “called out and circled twice” to Duke’s players at halftime, McCallie said, but it made no difference. She hit 3 more 3-pointers and added 13 points in the second half.

With two minutes left in the third quarter, Morrison sprinted to the corner and blocked Duke guard Crystal Primm’s shot before being fouled. Hillsman called her over before she could make the foul shots just to give her a high five and playfully swat her dreadlocks as she jogged to the line.

On the next possession, Morrison hoisted her final 3 of the night and fan yelled, “take them out,” as the ball swished in.

When Morrison saw the box score for the first time she whispered, “I shot 12 3s. That’s a lot,” to Brittney Sykes, who was sitting next to her. It was the most the redshirt senior has ever taken in a game and her seven long-distance conversions nearly doubled her previous record.

“Once she started making a couple, the rim just gets bigger and bigger,” Hillsman said, “and you just got to give her a lot of credit.”

In a game where Syracuse shocked the No. 12 team in the country with a dominating win, Morrison’s play was the biggest surprise. She shed her role as a player with minimal impact to have a career night.

“People kind of forget about me and I just get left open and I knock down the shots,” Morrison said. “It just happened to be my day today.”

Published on January 3, 2016 at 5:55 pm

Contact Jon: [email protected] | @jmettus