Syracuse secures 10th win with dominant 72-54 victory vs. Binghamton
Syracuse secured its 10th win of the season with a 72-54 victory over Binghamton. Leopold Gensler | Contributing Photographer
Support The Daily Orange this holiday season! The money raised between now and the end of the year will go directly toward aiding our students. Donate today.
The result might as well have been set in stone before Binghamton even walked into the JMA Wireless Dome. Prior to Syracuse’s Tuesday matchup against the Bearcats, it’d spent the entirety of its season turning mid-major New York programs into its prey.
First was a season-opening, 24-point victory against Stony Brook. Then came a 19-point win over UAlbany. Dominant performances followed against Canisius, Wagner and Colgate, with the Orange winning the latter two contests by margins of over 45 points. Syracuse’s in-state rivals had never stood a chance against it all season.
Even last season’s SU squad — which suffered a shocking upset loss at the hands of UAlbany in its fifth game of the year — had no trouble dispatching the Bearcats with a 27-point win. No matter what Binghamton head coach Mary Grimes did on the opposing sideline, the outcome was a fait accompli.
For the sixth time this season, a mid-major in-state foe made the trek to the JMA Wireless Dome. And for the sixth time this season, Syracuse sent them packing with a double-digit loss. The Orange (10-1, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) suffocated Binghamton (6-4, America East) in their 72-54 victory, holding the Bearcats to 34.5% from the field. Dominique Darius led the way with 17 points for SU, while Uche Izoje secured her third double-double of the season.
And yet, despite what the result would indicate, a Syracuse win wasn’t such a foregone conclusion early on. Six minutes in, Yanniah Boyd’s pull up jumper made it 6-4 Binghamton. Unlike SU’s contest against the Raiders, where it rode a 24-5 first quarter to a dominant victory, the Orange simply couldn’t pull away.
It took the Bearcats less than five minutes to outdo the entirety of Colgate’s first quarter scoring production. SU missed its first three 3-pointers, and made just three of its first 10 shots.
Anything the Orange did, Binghamton matched. After Izoje made two consecutive layups to put Syracuse up 10-7, Boyd and Kendall Bennett both scored to reclaim an 11-10 lead.
Keira Scott closed the quarter with a mid-range jumper, giving SU a narrow 12-11 advantage after 10 minutes. But it was a far cry from the dominance the Orange had grown accustomed to through its first 10 games.
When Syracuse needs a leader to step up, Dominique Darius has often been one of the first faces it looks to. At halftime of its dominant 96-72 win over Canisius, she was the one who demanded more defensive effort from her teammates. Against Utah, her 16-point double-double helped turn a halftime deficit into a 61-49 victory.
It was little surprise when she spearheaded SU’s offensive resurgence on Tuesday.
After receiving a pass from Madeline Potts, Darius broke SU’s dry spell from beyond the arc with a 3-pointer, giving it a 15-11 lead. Then, she tacked on another three points to its advantage with a corner triple. Two mid-range jumpers later, and Darius was already up to 12 points less than 14 minutes in. By then, SU’s advantage had swelled to 24-13.
The Orange continued to clamp down on the Bearcats offense, outscoring Binghamton 19-5 through the first five minutes of the second quarter. Izoje repeatedly stuffed the Bearcats in the paint — recording two blocks in the quarter — while Laila Phelia compensated for her 1-for-6 start with two steals in the frame.
But with four minutes until the half, Syracuse began to relax its intensity on both ends of the ball. Its lead — which had once grown to as much as 17 points — had shrunk to 33-27 after Binghamton’s 12-0 run.
Jasmyn Cooper stemmed the bleeding with a layup, though, and Sophie Burrows’ ensuing fastbreak layup helped the Orange enter the half with a sizable 39-28 advantage.
After a brief interlude, Burrows sprang right back into action. Syracuse’s suffocating press made life difficult for the Bearcats from opening tip, forcing Kaia Goode into an awry pass. Burrows dove in front of it, grabbed her second steal of the game, and took Izoje’s subsequent feed to the rim to open the scoring for SU in the second half.
The iteration of Binghamton that had gone toe-to-toe with the Orange through the game’s opening frame disappeared from there.
Less than four minutes into the third quarter, Angelica Velez — who entered the game shooting 16.7% from 3 — canned a triple to extend Syracuse’s lead to a game-high 20 points. If there was any hope for the Bearcats to keep the game competitive, Velez had effectively killed it.
After the 1:20 mark of the second quarter, the contest never got within single digits again. Syracuse entered the fourth quarter with a 57-35 lead, allowing it to empty its bench across the final frame with its fifth consecutive victory all but sealed.
Last season, the Orange had to wait until Feb. 9 to claim their 10th victory — a 62-50 triumph over Wake Forest. It wasn’t much to celebrate; the season was practically over, with SU wielding 13 losses and a paltry 4-8 ACC record at that point.
Things can change a lot in a year. Syracuse — seven weeks before that date — walked out of the JMA Wireless Dome with its 10th victory in stow. And with zero ACC losses, the season couldn’t be further from over for head coach Felisha Legette-Jack’s squad.
