Syracuse thrashes Pitt 84-51 for 10th ACC win
Syracuse women’s basketball blew out Pitt 84-51 on the road Thursday for its 10th ACC win of the season. Courtesy of SU Athletics
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Syracuse women’s basketball can see the light at the end of the tunnel. With a few weeks remaining in the regular season, the Orange are a projected No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
While SU’s resume isn’t the strongest — with a 1-4 Quad 1 record — it still has four Quad 2 victories and entered Thursday’s matchup with Pitt sitting 19-5 overall. But with three teams ranked top-40 in the NET still on the schedule, Syracuse is far from a lock for the NCAA Tournament.
The bottom line is the Orange can’t afford too many slip-ups if they want to secure a March Madness bid before the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. Games like Thursday’s against a reeling Pitt squad are the ones SU absolutely needs to win to inch closer to an NCAA Tournament spot.
And Syracuse did in dominant fashion. Backed by a 51.5% team field goal percentage, the Orange (20-5, 10-4 ACC) blasted Pitt (8-18, 1-12 ACC) 84-51 on the road Thursday for its second-largest ACC victory under head coach Felisha Legette-Jack. Sophie Burrows and Uche Izoje led the way for SU, each scoring 18 points. Dominique Darius (11 points, nine assists) and Maddy Potts (14 points) also chipped in to guide Syracuse to its 10th conference win of the campaign.
The Orange got going with an 11-4 run in the game’s opening five minutes. Their first bucket came on an alley-oop layup from Izoje off an inbound. On the next possession, Darius teed Izoje up for another 2 with a nifty wraparound bounce pass into the paint. Shy Hawkins tacked on four quick points before Sophie Burrows drilled SU’s first triple of the night.
Mikayla Johnson — Pitt’s leading scorer — then got going on the other end to cut into the lead, and the Panthers made the early switch to a zone defense to try to disrupt SU’s rhythm. It worked for a bit, allowing them to take a narrow lead after a 12-4 run.
The Orange tried to find the weak spots in the zone by teeing up a couple Journey Thompson jumpers from intermediate range. She made 1-of-3 attempts inside the arc, as SU’s early lead slipped, and it trailed 18-15. Darius and Laila Phelia then hit back-to-back 3s to close the quarter up by just one.
In the early stages of the second quarter, Burrows helped the Orange separate. She embarked on a personal 8-0 run, canning back-to-back 3s and sinking a left-handed layup to give the Orange a nine-point lead.
The run forced a Pitt timeout, but its fortune wasn’t much different after the break. Izoje hit a turnaround jumper, finished a fast break layup, and then sank two free throws to extend the lead to 15. Darius then finished an and-1 to cap an 18-0 run.
The Panthers only managed to close the floodgates with a Fatima Diakhate jumper from the left side of the baseline. Jasmyn Cooper and Darius then hit back-to-back shots, which helped Syracuse lead 43-24 at the half. The Orange shot 40% to Pitt’s 20% from the field in the frame.
Pitt never recovered from there. Syracuse extended the lead to as much as 30 in the third quarter, during which it shot 68.8% from the field.
After Johnson scored the first bucket of the frame, the Orange took over on a quick 13-6 run. Burrows scored five of those points, while Izoje scored four. It gave SU a then-game-high 24-point advantage and forced a Pitt timeout four minutes into the half.
The Panthers were better out of the stoppage, scoring four quick points, but it didn’t make much of a difference. Syracuse kept its advantage around 20 points for most of the third as the squads traded buckets.
The Orange changed up their rotations, throwing Cooper, Olivia Schmitt and Potts into the game for most of the period. After a Cooper 3 and an Izoje layup, Potts drilled a triple to give SU a massive advantage into the break.
Pitt never provided much of a threat in the fourth. Potts caught fire, much like she did late against Boston College, igniting for a career-high in points. Backed by her 11 points in the frame, SU cruised to the 33-point win. It’s another box the Orange can check as they seek their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2024.
