Keith Cieplicki said it would be a difficult season before the Orangewomen ever stepped on the court.

Four months after his preseason prediction, the first-year Syracuse women’s basketball coach can say he was right.

The Orangewomen (6-21, 3-13 Big East) finished twelfth out of fourteen teams in the conference and ended their season with a 64-36 loss to Boston College in the opening round of the Big East tournament on March 6. It was SU’s 13th straight loss – the worst losing streak since the Orangewomen dropped 16 in a row during the 1993-94 season.

‘Honestly, I don’t think I could be doing better,’ Cieplicki said Jan. 20 before Syracuse, who was 6-11 at the time, played Virginia Tech. ‘It’s in the sense of trying to build what we came here to build. Obviously if you want to talk about this season and wins and losses, we could be doing better. But I think that it really is about moving in a direction, and I think that we’re moving in the right direction. We knew it was going to be a process and would take patience.’

One thing Cieplicki might not have planned on was SU’s 12.9 point average margin of defeat. Only four of SU’s losses were decided by less than double digits, but even those four margins were at least seven points.

‘We were in a lot of games until the end and then we would just let it get away,’ freshman Lauren Kohn said. ‘But we didn’t let it get us down. Each day we kept coming back and thinking we’ll win the next one.’

After starting 2-0, the Orangewomen managed to win just one of their remaining eight non-conference games.

Syracuse also dealt with several off-the-court issues. Following an 82-62 loss to Cornell on Dec. 20, Cieplicki suspended senior April Jean, freshman Tracy Harbut and sophomores Tierra Jackson and Marchele Campbell for violating team academic policy. The school announced on Jan. 7 that Jean and Jackson would leave the team. Harbut and Campbell missed 12 games and did not play again until Feb. 7. Also, last year’s leading scorer and rebounder Shannon Perry was suspended for the first half of the season. After serving her suspension, she chose not to return to the Orangewomen for her senior season.

‘It would have been better to have those (suspended) players on the bench for their physical and emotional attributes, but we just had to deal with it,’ Kohn said. ‘It was definitely a shock, but it brought us seven (active players) closer together because we realized it’s just going to be us for a while.’

The Orangewomen adjusted just fine by feasting on Big East bottom-feeders Pittsburgh and Providence. In between, SU pulled off a 59-57 come-from-behind overtime victory against Rutgers at Manley Field House. But the Orangewomen’s early 3-1 conference record and third-place standing in the ultra-competitive Big East, which sent eight teams to the NCAA Tournament, quickly plummeted back to reality.

The 13-game losing streak started with a 64-35 loss to Notre Dame on Jan. 21, in which point guard Julie McBride said, ‘If we hit half of the shots we took, it would have been a different story.’

Unfortunately for SU, it was the same old story for the rest of the season. The shots never dropped for the Orangewomen, who shot 35.9 percent from the field on the season and made just 28.6 percent of their 3-pointers.

Another recurring theme was SU’s lack of size, allowing opponents to pull down 11.4 more rebounds per game. The Orangewomen got outrebounded in all but two of their contests, and more often than not, it spelled their defeat.

‘There were key points in games when we had mental breakdowns,’ Kohn said. ‘It might be a bad pass, a defensive breakdown or a poor shooting night. And when mental breakdowns plagued one person, it seemed to affect others as well. That’s not a good thing for team, but with our team it was a contagious.’

Kohn said that was especially true when McBride was missing her shot attempts. Though SU’s all-time leader in points, assists, free throws and 3-pointers averaged 16.3 points in her final season, McBride still suffered her off-nights. And it was then when the lack of a No. 2 scoring threat really hurt the Orangewomen.

Kohn’s 8.1 points per game ranked a distant second on the SU stat sheet. Junior center Chineze Nwagbo showed glimpses of becoming a reliable inside threat for SU, but she struggled late in the year and saw her scoring average drop from double digits to just 7.9 points.

Though McBride will be the only graduating senior, the void she leaves will be that much tougher to fill with no proven scorer left on SU’s roster.

‘We’re definitely going to miss Julie because she was our team leader physically and emotionally,’ Kohn said. ‘It’d be great to have someone step into her role and take charge, but it’ll probably be a team effort for a while.’

Kohn said she’s not sure how everyone’s roles will change for next year, but Cieplicki’s first incoming recruiting class, which was rated No. 23 in the nation by the Blue Star Index, is expected to make a big impact next year and speed up that process of improvement Cieplicki talks about.

‘Right now, I see us improving every year,’ Kohn said. ‘How much improving? I can’t tell you because I really am not sure. But eventually we’re going to be up there (in the Big East standings).’

It just remains to be seen when eventually will become now.

Published on March 15, 2004 at 12:00 pm