Spring Break
The Daily OrangeWBB | Freshly ranked Syracuse focused despite added exposure
By Kyle Austin
Posted: 1/24/08, 10:14 PM EST Section: Sports
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But her emotions quickly changed to elation, and she started to spread the good news. First on her list was SU head coach Quentin Hillsman.
"I'm like, 'Coach, we're ranked,' and he was like, 'Yeah man, we did it,'" Goodwin said. "I'm like, 'Oh my God.' Then I called everyone in my phone book, like 300 people."
There haven't been many tears of joy or good news to spread for the SU women's basketball throughout the years - it has had one winning season in the last 17. But with Saturday's win against Villanova, the Orange (15-3, 3-2 Big East) assured itself a winning season.
Hillsman emphasized the importance of keeping the team's momentum going, which the Orange will try to do Saturday when St. John's (10-8, 1-4) visits the Dome for a 2 p.m. tip.
"We can't go out there and be happy about where we are and just settle," Hillsman said. "We've got to continue to work hard as a team and to push and to win as many games as possible."
Earning a guaranteed winning record makes them postseason eligible, but Hillsman said that is only the beginning. From there, Hillsman said the team still has to make the Big East tournament, and then the NCAA Tournament.
And while the polls brought good news for Syracuse, it brought better news for five of SU's Big East foes. Six conference teams were ranked in the AP top 25, and seven were in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll, the most teams to be ranked at one time in Big East history.
Hillsman said the overall strength of the conference means that even though Syracuse is ranked, opponents will not necessarily start circling their games against the Orange.
"I think that our conference is so tough that you can't look past it," Hillsman said. "You can't not circle anybody because everybody's good in our conference."
Goodwin, though, had a different take.
"I want teams to dread playing us," Goodwin said. "I just want them to be like 'Oh we're playing Syracuse, God!'"
But Hillsman, the second-year head coach, repeatedly emphasized while the rankings were nice, the team had more work to do to achieve its goals. It had some extra time this week - SU didn't have a midweek game for the first time since Christmas - to get back in the weight room and rehab some ailing players.
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