Over and over again, shots aimed at the hoop were smacked into the “U” in the “CUSE” branding behind a basket in the Carmelo K. Anthony Center.

Seemingly every time Gabrielle Cooper and her teammates went up for a shot, Emily Engstler sent them crashing into the “U.” It was the first intrasquad pickup game of the 2018 summer, and the first time Cooper played with Engstler, then a freshman.

Players were stunned when they first met the five-star recruit — “She is huge!” Cooper remembers thinking. SU was getting a 6-foot-1 forward with offensive skills like a guard who could also protect the rim. But the No. 9-overall 2018 prospect was also erratic, prone to emotional outbursts during practices and games. “You didn’t know what you were going to get from her,” former assistant coach Tammi Reiss said.

“Is she going to cry? Is she going to get upset? Is she going to scream? Is she going to walk out? You just didn’t know,” Reiss said.

Engstler’s teammates and coaches all point to one thing when asked about her time at SU: the adjustment. After a rocky first season, the Orange now know exactly what they’re getting with Engstler. She’s posted a team-high eight double-doubles and is third in the conference with 9.8 rebounds per game. Her more consistent play and improved attitude reinforce Engstler’s growth from freshman to sophomore year.

“A lot of your opponents don’t affect you,” head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “You affect you. If you stay level and you keep your head, you’re going to be able to score.”

“It’s a constant message,” Hillsman added.

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Last year, Engstler came off the bench for all 29 games she played in, and her minutes fluctuated in the teens — a harsh reality for a player who’d played all game, every game for the last 12 years. She made mental mistakes and struggled to perform consistently, at one point describing the season as a “roller coaster.”

But Engstler knew it wouldn’t be easy. She wouldn’t have gotten a tattoo with the word “Persevere” on the inside of her left index finger if she thought it would be. In Syracuse’s final game, a second-round loss in the NCAA tournament to South Dakota State, Engstler played only eight minutes and scored two points.

Engstler never knocked on Hillsman’s office door to ask for more minutes, but frustrations bubbled. Reiss remembered times when Hillsman would substitute Engstler out of a game or a call wouldn’t go her way, and anger overcame her. Syracuse players were whistled for only two technical fouls last season, both on Engstler.

She’d purposely shun Hillsman’s high-five offerings, Reiss said. Teammates noticed. “When she gets mad, she gets mad,” point guard Kiara Lewis said. And when Engstler’s teammates all try to calm her temper at once, it got worse, Lewis added.

“Everyone deals with things in their own way,” Engstler said. “I was dealing with things in my own way, and sadly sometimes that didn’t reflect the person I was on the court.”

Dealing with emotions on the court isn’t new for Engstler; it’s always been an issue for her. A lot of people chalked it up to her “passion for the game,” she said.

But this year’s different, Engstler and those close to her said. She’s more stable, Reiss said, more locked in. Now playing 30 minutes per game, her main source of frustration has vanished. Gone are the days when she’d enter a game “mad at the world.”

“Every year, to me, is a growth period,” Engstler said. “I was younger, and I think a lot has changed since then.”

Engstler can’t quite describe her shift in mental focus, but she’s “tired” of arguing with referees and worrying about things she can’t control. She’s led Syracuse in assists five times, something she didn’t do once her freshman season. She didn’t record any double-doubles last year, either.

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Syracuse is at its best when Engstler impacts each facet of a game. After defensive rebounds, Engstler often pushes the ball up the court herself, which puts extra pressure on the defense. The 2018 New York state Gatorade player of the year tallied eight points, nine rebounds and six assists in SU’s most recent win over No. 5 Louisville.

A month earlier, during an overtime win against Notre Dame on Jan. 5, Engstler scored a career-high 22 points and grabbed 15 rebounds to go with two assists, two blocks and a steal. Her ability to play in the paint and on the perimeter as a “hybrid” forward is one of the keys to forcing mismatches. She constantly makes the extra pass, finding shooters in the corner when a defender overcommits to her.

“She just knows how it is now,” forward Digna Strautmane said. “And she tries to not make the same mistakes as she did last year.”

This season, Engstler rarely sulks on the bench when she gets subbed out and hasn’t picked up any technicals. During practices, she’ll encourage teammates to communicate and follow instructions, Strautmane said. When someone jokes during a drill, Engstler tells them to refocus. She was often the quickest to slap hands with her teammates between walkthroughs at a mid-February practice.

Her “Persevere” tattoo, the one inked before Engstler’s freshman campaign, was by far the most painful, she said. She got it before the technicals, the emotional outbursts, the roller-coaster season. Before the adjustment.  

Now, it serves as a reminder of the frustration, the pain of that “growth period.”

Published on February 12, 2020 at 10:48 pm

Contact Danny: [email protected] | @DannyEmerman