Emely Rodriguez didn’t stay on the bench for long, and Syracuse was better for it.
After picking up her second foul late in the first quarter Wednesday night against Siena, the Iowa transfer sat while the Orange tried to keep control. But with Syracuse stuck in a tight game and Siena hanging around late in the second quarter, Felisha Legette-Jack sent Rodriguez back in. The move changed everything.
By halftime, Syracuse had turned a two-point edge into a 12-point lead, and the Orange rolled from there to an 82-58 win.
Rodriguez finished with 12 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals in 25 minutes, marking her third straight game in double figures. Syracuse was plus-21 with her on the floor, the second-best mark on the team.
“She trusts me,” Rodriguez said. “You have to have a coach that trusts you. But I just went out there and played free, and I wanted to help my team pull (out) the win.”
That second-quarter burst told the story. Syracuse had been stuck in a slugfest, and Legette-Jack wanted Rodriguez to help create separation.
“She brings pace, she brings poise, she brings you efficiency from the three,” Legette-Jack said. “She doesn’t look at it (as) ‘I’m not warmed up.’ She just understands the assignment.”
Rodriguez answered immediately. On her first possession back, she helped force a pick-up as the low defender on the block, then recovered to contest a layup.
A possession later, she collected a rebound, pushed the outlet, got the ball back and drove into the lane to draw a foul. She finished the stretch by burying a top-of-the-key three off a shovel from Tyi Skinner.
In a span of two minutes, Syracuse stretched a two-point lead to 12.
“I think Emely changed the game just by being very composed,” Sarah Rambus said. “She didn’t get sped up, and I feel like we all played off of her and that energy shifted onto us as well as a team.”
Rodriguez kept it going to start the second half. On Syracuse’s first possession of the third quarter, she pump-faked, took one dribble left and knocked down her second three-pointer of the night. Later in the period, she and Jaleesa Molina traded steals and assists to each other as the Orange pushed the margin to 19.
Through three games, Rodriguez has become a steady, multi-purpose piece for Syracuse. She is second on the team in points, rebounds and assists, and she is tied for the team lead in steals and three-pointers made.
After a strong freshman season at UCF, an injury limited her to six games at Iowa last season. So far, she has looked like exactly the kind of addition Syracuse needed.
“I think she has an old soul,” Legette-Jack said. “I think that has been a problem for her at her other schools, that people didn’t look at her as an older person.
They saw her as a kid. I see her as a young woman that’s got a lot to gift us with with her conversation.
We’ve go to be patient enough to listen to her and allow her to make some mistakes, and I do trust her. I’m grateful that she’s on this team.”
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