Syracuse falls 77-57 vs. Virginia Tech, suffers 2nd ACC loss
In Syracuse's loss to Virginia Tech Thursday, Dominique Darius logged just 19 minutes and scored five points, tied for her fewest this season. Courtesy of SU Athletics
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The date’s been circled on the calendar for months: Jan. 8, 2026 — “The Nelson Game,” as it was affectionately dubbed by a St. Luke’s School (Connecticut) Instagram post.
Robbie and Drury Nelson had sweated this possibility for over two years. On one side? Their eldest daughter, redshirt sophomore Mackenzie Nelson, who is Virginia Tech’s starting point guard. On the other? Her sister, true freshman point guard Camdyn Nelson, who started Syracuse’s first three games but has since settled into a minimal role off the bench.
They spent years watching this exact same battle play out in their driveway, often with Mackenzie on the winning end. Matt Ward, their former head coach at St. Luke’s, saw it as well, how Mackenzie would “give it” to her younger sister whenever they faced off in practice. Eventually, after years of losses, Camdyn decided she was done playing against Mackenzie.
Years later, when Camdyn committed to Syracuse, Robbie had just one thing to say to her.
“Now, you’ll have no choice but to play your sister,” he told her. “You gotta get out there now.”
This iteration of The Nelson Game tilted in Mackenzie’s favor — albeit through little fault of Camdyn’s — as Virginia Tech (12-5, 2-3 Atlantic Coast) escaped the JMA Wireless Dome with a 77-57 victory over Syracuse (13-3, 3-2 ACC) Thursday. Mackenzie finished the game with 13 points, while Camdyn played just one minute. The rest of the Orange didn’t fare much better, though, finishing the contest with a dismal 35% field-goal percentage.
“I can sit here and come up with 40 different ways that I can lie to you,” SU head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. “But at the end of the day, we made a decision to not be energetically ready to go.”
Mackenzie — comparatively — appeared more than energetically ready to play early on. With the game tied at 4-4, Sophie Burrows tried to dribble at the top of the key, but Mackenzie picked her pocket and took the fastbreak to the rim for a layup that gave VT a 6-4 lead.
Soon after, she responded to a Dominique Darius jumper with a deep 3-pointer from the right wing, putting the Hokies ahead 11-7. Syracuse had to prevent the game from getting out of hand, and it did just that with layups from Burrows and Uche Izoje to tie the contest at 11-11.
That was the final time the game would level. Carleigh Wenzel drained a triple of her own — one of Mackenzie’s five assisted buckets — to give Virginia Tech a three-point lead, and Carys Baker followed with a mid-range jumper to push the advantage to five.
SU’s deficit had swelled to seven by the time the quarter ended. Less than two minutes into the second frame, it reached double-digits after a jumper from Samyha Suffren.
“We knew they were going to trap us,” SU head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said. “What we did was just get in the trap and just fold in the corner.”
In each of the Hokies’ conference losses, they’ve been susceptible to giving up big games to paint powers. Miami’s Ra Shaya Kyle ran roughshod on VT’s frontcourt in the Hurricanes’ 75-67 win, and Louisville’s Laura Ziegler did more of the same when the Cardinals snagged an 85-60 victory. Duke’s Toby Fournier left Blacksburg with 19 points, nine boards and four blocks — a performance eerily reminiscent of her game against SU.
Knowing this, it made sense the Orange would try to follow that formula with their own paint phenom, Izoje, against Virginia Tech.
But seemingly, the Hokies prepared a contingency plan for that exact situation. Izoje made just two of her first six shots, scoring four points in the first half. Nearly every time she received the ball, she was met by a horde of Hokies post players, smothering her before she could find a clean shot. The perimeter play wasn’t helping much either.
“I thought that it was unfair how teams were allowed to guard her,” Legette-Jack said. “But we have to adjust to that.”
The Orange didn’t score in the second frame until the 3:40 mark. Syracuse’s struggles hit their nadir 30 seconds before that, when Izoje, yet again, received the ball in the paint.
She was instantly hit with a triple team and quickly lost her grasp on the ball. In a last-ditch effort to maintain possession, Izoje threw her hands up while she leaped, dramatically kicking her feet into the air. Virginia Tech’s Kayl Petersen knocked the ball out of her hands about a millisecond before she caught a foot to the face from Izoje, after which she began bleeding from her nose. Izoje was called for a flagrant foul. The Hokies led 33-15 soon after.
The Orange salvaged a somewhat respectable 12-point halftime deficit, closing out the second quarter with a six-point run in the final minute. But the two were still leagues apart.
Mackenzie, in particular, continued playing with a vengeance. Just two minutes into the second half, she drew a foul on Journey Thompson, canning both of her free throws to make it 42-25. On SU’s next offensive possession, she reached her arm out and deflected a pass from Darius, driving to the rim for a layup to extend VT’s lead to 19 points.
The smile didn’t leave her face as she jogged up to Wenzel, giving her a chest bump while Legette-Jack called a timeout. The game was easy for her. It looked like she was having fun.
Syracuse, on the other hand, certainly didn’t. Camdyn remained on the bench until late in the fourth quarter, watching her sister dominate. The game never got within single digits again.
Mackenzie just kept finding Hokies, who in turn kept finding nylon. For the last two minutes, Camdyn checked into the game, and it was almost as if they were back in their driveway, Mackenzie doing everything in her power to hand her sister a loss.
