Syracuse bests last season’s win total with 73-58 victory over Wake Forest
The Orange traded leads throughout the first 20 minutes, but rode a 41-27 second-half advantage to their 13th victory, topping last season’s win total. Courtesy of SU Athletics
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Simple rating system is a metric that quantifies a team’s performance throughout the season, primarily based on two figures: strength of schedule and average point differential.
If you let their records tell it, Syracuse and Wake Forest were practically even heading into Sunday’s contest at Lawrence Joel Coliseum. Both squads carried 12 wins on the year, and both had two wins in Atlantic Coast Conference play.
But in reality, the two have had drastically different 12-win campaigns. Wake Forest padded its record with wins over subpar opponents, defeating zero nonconference squads with an SRS over five. Syracuse, on the other hand, exited nonconference play with victories over Utah and Auburn, Power Five squads who both hold double-digit SRS figures.
It’s a large reason why — despite the squads’ similar win totals — SU entered Sunday with an SRS of 19.11, towering over the Demon Deacons’ measure of 4.93. If all went according to plan, the Orange should’ve walked out of Winston-Salem with another ACC win under their belt.
Ultimately, while the first half didn’t go exactly according to plan, the second half surely did in Syracuse’s (13-2, 3-1 ACC) 73-58 victory over Wake Forest (12-4, 2-2 ACC) on Sunday. The Orange traded leads throughout the first 20 minutes, but rode a 41-27 second-half advantage to their 13th victory, topping last season’s win total. For the second-straight game, Izoje led the way with a double-double, finishing with 18 points and 12 boards.
And as has been the case all season, Uche Izoje was all over the floor for Syracuse at the outset. A little over a minute into the contest, the freshman drew first blood with a turnaround jumper to give SU a 2-0 advantage.
After Wake Forest’s Milan Brown tied the game up at 2-2, Izoje also made her impact on the defensive end. Remaining strong in the paint, she stonewalled Opal Bird’s layup attempt, forcing the Demon Deacons’ big to release a heavily-contested, failed layup attempt. Then, when Grace Oliver grabbed the offensive board, Izoje forced another layup miss from Mary Carter.
But Izoje couldn’t stop them all. Somehow, Oliver snagged another offensive rebound for Wake Forest, and she finally broke into the paint with a layup to make it 4-2. On SU’s ensuing possession, Sophie Burrows tried lobbing a pass to Izoje from behind the arc, but it bounced off the rim into the arms of Wake Forest’s Aurora Sørbye, who made a midrange from the free throw line to push its lead to 6-2.
Then the Orange came back with a vengeance. A little over six minutes into the game, Laila Phelia drove to the rim and made a layup, fighting through the contact from Bird. With a free throw, she finished off the 3-point play to cap off a 9-2 run for Syracuse.
SU led 11-8 at that point. The Orange closed the quarter up 15-14, but it was still anyone’s game throughout the second quarter.
Shy Hawkins — who was benched in favor of Burrows after starting SU’s last eight games — gave Syracuse an early boost in the second frame, racking up six early points through layups in transition. Her efforts, along with Izoje’s 10-point tally, inflated the Orange’s lead to 25-19 just four minutes into the second quarter.
The Demon Deacons weren’t ready to lie down yet. Oliver cut their deficit to four with a layup, and Caitlyn Jones made it a one-possession game soon after with a jumper of her own. Trying to initiate offense, Izoje readied to inbound, releasing the ball with her foot on the baseline.
Foul. Wake Forest ball.
Jones capitalized again, this time with a layup, making the game even at 25-25. Suddenly, after 3-pointers from Carter and Sørbye, the Demon Deacons had flipped the game on its head, concluding their 12-2 run with a 31-27 advantage.
Miraculously, thanks to Phelia’s last-second 3-pointer, the Orange entered halftime with a narrow 32-31 lead. But eventually, someone had to pull away.
Out of the break, it took SU just a few minutes to do so. Phelia made two quick buckets to give Syracuse a 36-33 lead, and Izoje followed with a turnaround midrange. After Oliver cut the deficit back down to three with a layup, Burrows answered with a fastbreak 3-pointer — her first of the game — to push the advantage back up to six.
Phelia hit another triple less than a minute later, and when Burrows splashed her second 3-pointer just over five minutes into the third quarter, it gave the Orange their first double-digit lead on the day.
It was a wrap from then. The Demon Deacons scored once throughout the rest of the third frame, going on a six-minute drought. Wake Forest wouldn’t touch a lead for the remainder of the game, and the gap swelled to as much as 22 points.
SU was firing on all cylinders, on both ends of the court. All of a sudden, the two teams didn’t seem all that even anymore. It looked as if one — Syracuse — was particularly stronger than its opponent, and the scoreboard finally began to reflect that.
