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Felisha Legette-Jack, with her lips sealed and hands on hips, stood motionless in front of the scorer’s table. Four straight missed 3s from Syracuse, spurring an eight-minute field-goal drought to start the game, prompted the head coach to swiftly walk toward her bench.

Legette-Jack’s hands rose to her face, almost covering her eyes as the JMA Wireless Dome crowd remained standing, waiting for a shot to fall.

Cheers turned into silence, and Legette-Jack took a seat.

Syracuse didn’t score until it was trailing 12-0 at the 5:13 mark, when Uche Izoje knocked down her second of two free throws. It was the Orange’s longest drought to start a game this season. At the quarter’s end, they trailed 28-6, getting held without a field goal in a quarter for the first time in at least eight years.

“We just didn’t come out and throw the first punch,” said SU guard Sophie Burrows, who went 0-for-3 in that span. “(Louisville) just hit us first. I think we just hurt ourselves in that sense.”

The early mess, which Syracuse (19-5, 9-4 Atlantic Coast) cut to as little as five in the next 30 minutes, resulted in an 84-65 loss to No. 6 Louisville (22-4, 12-1 ACC). Dominique Darius’ flawless 6-for-6 second quarter didn’t outweigh Laila Phelia’s scoreless first-half, as Louisville’s lead swelled and remained in double digits down the stretch.

Syracuse’s only other top-10 opponent this season was then-No. 6 Michigan on Nov. 23, 2025. After that game — a 26-point loss — Legette-Jack apologized to the Wolverines for her team’s effort, saying they didn’t show how to compete.

Two and a half months later, the Orange are poles apart from where they were. They entered Sunday’s matchup as a projected No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and Louisville, as a No. 2 seed, emerged as SU’s largest test of the year.

This time, signs of growth were there. The final result still wasn’t.

“We all watched that second quarter. I think that was Syracuse basketball at its finest,” Burrows said. “That’s how we need to play for 40 minutes if we want to play with teams like Louisville. I think we’re more than capable.”

Burrows wore a blank stare postgame when discussing the first quarter. She knew it wasn’t a representation of her team’s strengths. It undermined nearly all of Legette-Jack’s standards: to punch first, to adapt when things didn’t go your way and to play as a united front.

Instead, SU trailed 10-0 just over three minutes in. It had turned the ball over three times, and Louisville was shooting a perfect 5-for-5 from the field, eight of those points coming where Syracuse thrives most: the paint.

The Orange’s only source of production in the frame came from the charity stripe. SU hit six of its eight first-quarter free throws, but Louisville matched it and more with 12-of-14 efficiency from the field and 11 rebounds to Syracuse’s five.

Burrows said the nerves rose to the forefront in that first quarter. While she said she looks at every game the same way, some of her younger teammates may have let Louisville’s ranking get to their heads.

For Syracuse to come back, it had to return to the basics. Izoje had to come away with rebounds, Burrows had to connect from deep — something that’s put SU back in games when nothing is going right — and its defense, which Sports Reference ranks as the 44th-best unit in the nation, had to shut down the Cardinals.

It finally started coming together. The Orange opened the second frame on an 8-2 run, cutting the deficit to 30-14. A separate 13-2 run started just over a minute later, when Darius, Burrows and Jasmyn Cooper drained 3s on three of SU’s next four possessions.

“We calmed down a little bit,” Burrows said. “We started executing offensively. We started talking defensively. It got us back into the game.”

The Cardinals’ six second-quarter turnovers allowed Darius to turn a forgettable first quarter into two triples and six makes. Her heroics fueled a 30-16 second-quarter advantage, and Syracuse took a manageable 44-36 deficit into halftime.

Louisville, however, ran away with the final two frames. Legette-Jack said she could tell the Cardinals felt more comfortable taking a chance and realized they were human, not superhuman. She pointed out her team’s responsibilities and how they should play freely while understanding their limits.

SU just couldn’t figure it out. With each punch the Orange threw, Louisville fought back.

Tajianna Roberts cleaned up Reyna Scott’s missed layup midway through the third quarter. Phelia matched it with a turnaround elbow jumper for her first bucket of the game. Laura Ziegler hit her second 3 in as many minutes, and Izoje stepped through for a mid-range jumper to bring the deficit back to single digits at 55-46.

SU’s early mistakes led Legette-Jack to experiment with her lineup a bit more than usual. Cooper played a season-high 16 minutes, and Camdyn Nelson and Journey Thompson filled the gaps when Phelia, Darius and Izoje had to rest.

But as Legette-Jack reiterated, Louisville continued to fly around and play freely, and with it, its lead ballooned. The Orange shot 3-of-14 in the fourth quarter, while the Cardinals’ three 3s prevented SU from getting within single digits again.

Syracuse’s 19-point loss isn’t as bad as the scoreboard shows. But the Orange’s goal is to make it all the way, prove to the world what it’s capable of and, as Legette-Jack said Sunday, put on some dancing shoes to celebrate what they’ve done.

Sunday showed Syracuse still has a way to go.

Published on February 8, 2026 at 2:17 pm
Contact Jordan: jordankimball28@gmail.com | @JordanKimball_