With less than 20 seconds to play in the first overtime on Saturday, Rachel Coffey fed Carmen Tyson-Thomas behind the arc for a potential game-tying 3-pointer. After hopping over a fallen Elashier Hall, Tyson-Thomas attempted the shot over the outstretched arms of a Villanova defender.

The ball rattled in, and the game was tied.

“I don’t think I had a feeling,” Tyson-Thomas said. “And I still don’t have a feeling about that, because I feel like that was lucky. That’s one of the lucky ones.”

The shot that sent the Carrier Dome crowd into a frenzy allowed Syracuse to extend Saturday afternoon’s game against Villanova into a second overtime, in a battle that eventually ended in a 77-75 Wildcats (19-9, 8-7 Big East) victory after three overtimes and 55 minutes of play. Tyson-Thomas’ 22-point, 11-rebound, five-assist effort in 41 minutes kept the Orange (22-6, 10-4) hanging around in a back-and-forth, wild matchup that marked SU’s third consecutive loss in conference play.

Tyson-Thomas finished the day 8-for-18 from the field, including a 4-for-8 clip from beyond the arc. Although Syracuse implemented a game plan that limited 3-point shooting in the face of the Wildcats’ 3-point frenzy, the senior guard took smart and timely shots that sparked the team, Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said.

“We tried to limit our 3s,” Hillsman said. “And for her to shoot 4-out of-8, 50 percent, one of our leaders, she took good ones. I’m very happy with her shot selection.”

Hillsman’s blueprint came to fruition throughout the game, as the Wildcats put up 40 3s during the contest, with the Orange shooting just 18.

Aside from her heroic effort near the end of the first overtime, Tyson-Thomas came through with a timely shot near the end of regulation that gave the Orange a chance to win before overtime. After Villanova’s Laura Sweeney put the Wildcats up 50-49 with just more than two minutes to play, Tyson-Thomas took a feed from Brittney Sykes on the next possession and drained a 3 that elicited a standing ovation from the Orange bench.

If Villanova’s Devon Kane hadn’t driven nearly the length of the court for a game-tying layup with 1.8 seconds remaining, the shot would have stood as the game-winner.

In the third overtime, after Sweeney’s bucket gave Villanova a five-point advantage with 1:24 remaining, Tyson-Thomas responded 19 seconds later by stepping around a defender and knocking down another 3-pointer to cut the lead to 77-75.

Tyson-Thomas said she isn’t afraid to take the pivotal three-pointer, as she proved on Saturday.

“It wasn’t different from the rest of the game, or any other game I play,” Tyson-Thomas said of her 3-point binge late in the game. “When I think I’m open, I’m going to shoot – and I guess sometimes when I’m not open, I’m still shooting. So I didn’t think too much about them. I just wanted to do what you should do, and I think that I got lucky a couple of times but it worked out for us.”

Tyson-Thomas showed grit and intensity throughout the game, not just from beyond the arc, diving for loose balls and muscling the ball away from opposing defenders in an 11-rebound effort that tied Kayla Alexander for the team lead.

So in a wild sequence at the end of the first overtime that saw Alexander force a Sweeney miss with seven seconds to spare, it was no surprise to see Tyson-Thomas grab the rebound and immediately race down the court to attempt a potential game-winning shot.

Tyson-Thomas couldn’t get the hurried shot from the right side of the basket to fall. But as Hillsman picked her up from the ground and told her to get ready for the next five minutes, nobody was questioning her heart.

“Carmen played tough,” Hillsman said. “It takes a lot of guts to take those shots. I thought that she definitely made big plays when we needed them.”

Published on March 2, 2013 at 7:57 pm

Contact Kevin: kmprisei@syr.edu