Syracuse women’s basketball continues second-half woes, blows 3-point halftime lead
The tears strolling down Nicole Michael’s face characterized the sentiment of the Syracuse women’s basketball team after its game against Georgetown. Syracuse’s forward recognized the magnitude of this game and aspired to impose revenge on a Hoyas team that defeated the Orange back in January.
But it wasn’t meant to be, and the same second-half woes continued to plague the struggling Syracuse squad. Ultimately, the Orange lost another opportunity to claim a crucial victory, conceding a 73-72 victory to Georgetown that evoked much emotion from a disappointed Syracuse team.
‘It was a must-win,’ Michael said as Chandrea Jones patted her dejected teammate on the back. ‘My teammates were really fired up and intense during warm-ups. We just really wanted this game.’
The Orange’s urgency showed in the first half, but the momentum couldn’t carry on into the subsequent half. In fact, the second half of the game appeared to be eerily similar to the Orange’s late collapse against DePaul just four days earlier.
After SU took a 37-34 lead into the half, the Orange allowed the Hoyas to open the second half on an 11-6 run. Once Syracuse scored its 44th point at the 17:28 mark, the Orange endured a three-minute scoreless drought, giving the Hoyas countless opportunities to catch up and expand their lead.
‘We really let this one get away,’ Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘They didn’t run anything we hadn’t seen. They didn’t do anything we didn’t know they were gonna do. We had three edits. We knew exactly what was coming down the pipe. Georgetown really made plays and you have to give them credit for it.’
These were the games Syracuse used to win. Earlier this season, the Orange was considered a formidable second-half team because of its ability to overcome first-half deficits and rally back to win games.
But that’s no longer the case. Recently, Syracuse has had tremendous difficulty finishing off opponents. For the third consecutive game, the Orange’s offense yielded to its opponents’ second half defensive pressure, producing a lackluster half that nullified the unit’s first half performance.
‘It’s so hard to explain,’ Hillsman said. ‘I can’t really answer that. I just know that we do all we can. We play hard and compete every night. That’s all I can ask them to do. We scored 37 points in the first half and 35 in the second half, so I thought it was a pretty balanced game.’
The statistics would prove otherwise. Throughout most of the second half, the Orange offense couldn’t connect from field goals and often relied on free throws to maintain a stronghold in the game.
Georgetown head coach Terri Williams-Flournoy credits guard Shanice Fuller, who also hit the game-winning shot with 24 seconds left, for the Hoyas’ defensive turnaround in the second half. During the half, Fuller registered three steals and forced the Orange guards to look more toward the interior.
‘I think our defensive intensity stepped up (in the second half),’ Williams-Flournoy said. ‘Shanice got a few steals that we pushed in transition. Our transition game kind of upped a little bit and we started pushing the ball. That helped us be more active in the defensive end.’
Thanks to Jones and guard Erica Morrow’s abilities to draw fouls, 15 of Syracuse’s 35 second-half points came from the charity stripe. The output during the period was a significant disparity from SU’s nine first-half free throws.
In the end, the Orange’s knack for inducing fouls proved effective as the squad scored a season-high 24 free throws, going 24-of-29 from the line. The team’s total free-throw amount didn’t appear to surprise Hillsman.
‘That’s our offense,’ Hillsman said. ‘We’re in the top five in the country in free-throw attempts, so that’s part of our offense. We don’t care how we get the points, we just want to score them. I thought we were being aggressive taking the ball to the basket, and it was better than chucking up a whole bunch of bad shots.’
