This was not supposed to happen, according to Syracuse women's basketball coach Quentin Hillsman.
Hillsman was talking Thursday night, after his 12th-ranked Orange had lost to No. 20 Minnesota at Williams Arena.
And by this, he meant Gophers forward Taiye Bello.
Bello had just finished with a career-high 20 points. More important, she also had grabbed 18 rebounds, including 10 on offense. By herself, Bello had rebounded nearly a quarter of the Gophers' misses on a night when Minnesota improved to 6-0 despite shooting just 34.8 percent.
After it was over, Hillsman — whose team has now played four ranked teams — said Bello was the best rebounder he'd seen.
"By far,'' he said. "And I know it doesn't look like it, but we game-planned for that. We said, 'When the ball goes up on the rim, we are going to face box out.' I told a player that was in her area, 'If you get the rebound, you're wrong, because you should be on her nose.' We didn't do a good job of executing that, obviously.''
Nobody really has.
After Friday's games, Bello is fourth in the nation in rebounds per game (14.3), fourth in offensive rebounds per game (6.2) and 10th in the nation in offensive rebounding rate (23.1).