As the minutes leaked off the pregame clock toward tipoff, Syracuse players danced in their layup lines. Washington’s pep band blared the tune of “Hey! Baby,” and Taylor Ford shimmied with Cornelia Fondren.

Before they assumed their role as bench players, unaware when they would be called upon. Before tipoff of the most important games of their career, and the program’s first-ever Final Four. Before they combined to score 18 points and Fondren finished with the second-most rebounds on the team.

Dancing. In the Final Four.

“It’s funny because this game didn’t feel like the Final Four. It felt like another game,” assistant coach Tammi Reiss said. “When I first got here I was a little like, ‘Oh we gotta warm up hard, we gotta focus.’

“…They’ve won 16 of 17. I don’t mess with it.”

The game played out like most of them have for Syracuse in the last nine weeks. Not only did Washington struggle to find an answer to SU’s press, but UW’s worn-out, six-man rotation couldn’t match the nine players the Orange cycled through. Every player that took the court for Syracuse (30-7, 13-3 Atlantic Coast) scored, and SU breezed past Washington (26-11, 11-7 Pacific-12), 80-59, in the Final Four to advance to the national championship game against Connecticut on Tuesday night.

Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman leaned more heavily on his bench than he had all postseason, with all four players logging double-digit minutes. But every player that came on the court had an answer when Washington tried to breathe life back into its season.

Maggie Morrison neutralized the third leading scorer in the country. Ford hit back-to-back 3s to double-up the Huskies on the scoreboard. Fondren sunk two shots at the buzzer.

“They had to come in and give us something,” Hillsman said, “and they came in and gave us something immediately.

“That’s all you can ask for, is for your bench to come in and be effective, and be tough.”

Ford hadn’t played double-digit minutes since playing 14 against Louisville on March 5. She had to pause and think about how she’d characterize her role on the team, but it didn’t matter when Hillsman yanked her off the bench just over a minute into the second quarter.

She snaked through Washington’s defense and was left alone behind the perimeter. The 6-foot senior noticed Alexis Peterson was guarded tightly, so she locked eyes with Morrison holding the ball. She skipped a pass underneath the Huskies’ reach and sank the open 3-point attempt.

After Talia Walton answered with her fifth 3 on the next possession, Ford, like Syracuse did all game, punched back. She sank a contested 3-pointer on the next possession, a shot she attributed to Hillsman’s never-ending demands to shoot. So she did, in the biggest minutes she’d played all season.

“Taylor has no conscious,” Reiss said. “Taylor’s a 3-point shooter. When Tay gets in the game, she knows what she’s going to do.

“It doesn’t faze her. The magnitude of the game, it doesn’t matter.”

“When I go in the game, I know what my job is to do,” Ford said. “If I’m open, I shoot it. I don’t think, ‘Oh if I wanna play I gotta make shots.’ It’s just a natural thing.”

Morrison rounded out the Orange’s offensive burst by hitting a 3 on the next possession. It marked nine points in three possessions to push the lead to 19, all off the bench. It was the only shot she sank all night, but it pushed SU ahead by keeping Washington behind.

The Huskies offense is captained by Kelsey Plum, the nation’s third-leading scorer. All game she was swatted and poked at by the Orange’s press, but not by anyone more than Morrison. At the end of the first quarter she intercepted a pass attempt from the Washington guard at midcourt.

To start off the second, Morrison just reached out and bounced the ball out of Plum’s hands. For a player who’s calling card off the bench this postseason has been quick offense, she prevented it on the other side of court Sunday.

“Maggie’s our scrapper,” Reiss said. “Maggie’s rocky. You put her in, and she just goes balls to the wall.”

Washington couldn’t come up with solutions as Hillsman cycled through his bench, formerly a questionable asset of a team now headed to the national championship game. His reserves had answers, enough to ensure the Huskies never took the lead. And enough to ensure Syracuse will play the last women’s college basketball game of the season.

Published on April 4, 2016 at 1:31 am

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