Julia Chandler put her back to the basket and tried backing down her defender to get closer to the rim for a shot. She took a few dribbles, turned as the pressure collapsed and bounced the ball out of bounds over the baseline.

But her next time with the ball, the 6-foot-2 center hoisted a shot from the right wing beyond the 3-point line and buried it while getting shoved in the chest.

“That’s actually my biggest transition,” Chandler said, “when to do stuff. Fit my style of play into this offense.”

Despite being the third-tallest player on the team, only behind the 6-foot-4 Day sisters, Chandler is in unfamiliar territory playing center. She’s a bit more used to covering and shooting from the wing than battling under the basket. Chandler’s high school background is at guard, not at center, but she logged double-digit minutes down low in each of the Orange’s last two contests with backup center Bria Day out due to injury.

As her role on the court increases, the freshman is looking to be more consistent and comfortable, starting on Thursday when the No. 23 Orange (20-6, 10-3 Atlantic Coast) hosts No. 10 Florida State (21-4, 11-1) at 7 p.m. in the Carrier Dome.

“Sometimes I have really good games and sometimes I’m like — you know,” Chandler said. “I think it’s now just being consistent being in this new role that I’m in.”

Chandler’s 7.9 minutes per game is the most among Syracuse freshmen. Her biggest reason for being on the court, head coach Quentin Hillsman said, is her shooting ability, which creates matchup problems for opposing defenses.

Half of her 26 makes have come from 3-point land. While the team’s other two centers, Briana and Bria Day, each shoot at least 50 percent from the field, Chandler shoots just 36.6 because of her long-range shots.

“She has had a couple games where she stepped in and made some shots, and she’s definitely changed opponents’ defensive schemes,” Hillsman said.

In the opening quarter against North Carolina State on Sunday, Chandler hit a 3 and then a baseline jumper in a span of a minute, but didn’t take a shot the rest of the game. She had five and seven points in losses to Notre Dame and Louisville, respectively, at the end of January, but then was scoreless in three of the next four contests.

One of the toughest adjustments to playing center has been running down the middle of the floor in transition and into the lane, Chandler said, rather than staying on the wing for a 3. One time a pass from Brittney Sykes flew over Chandler’s head because she wasn’t looking for it. Another time, an opponent poked the ball away as it reached Chandler’s hands.

“It’s so difficult because they’ll be on the same line as me,” Chandler said of her teammates running down the court with the ball, “and I have to turn my head like 180 (degrees) to know if they’re passing it to me or not, so it’s quite difficult.”

Though she’s used to playing outside, Syracuse, which has taken the fifth-most shots in the country, thrives on offensive rebounding. The Orange is third in the country with 19 offensive rebounds per game and starting center Briana Day leads the conference individually.

Chandler, though, hasn’t grabbed an offensive board in her last six games and has just two rebounds total in that span. When she played guard in high school, she was the “safety” that stayed back and didn’t crash the boards, but stopped the opponent’s fast break instead.

“Sometimes I’m just saying (to her) ‘You’re a freshman, but you just got to go crash and rebound,’” SU forward Taylor Ford said.

They key to being consistent, Chandler said, is thinking less. If she thinks too much, she hesitates on open shots and holds the ball too long in the paint so opposing defenders can collapse on her.

The emphasis for Hillsman, though, isn’t on right now and the effect that Chandler’s transition to center can have on SU’s last three regular-season games and beyond.

It’s on the future.

“The more she plays, the more comfortable she’ll become,” Hillsman said. “Nothing can replace that. So I told her she can get through the season and continue to get game reps and progress her way through the rest of her career here.”

Published on February 17, 2016 at 9:57 pm

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