In 2nd straight game, SU struggled in 1st quarter. This time, it prevailed.
After leading by just one point through the first quarter Thursday, Syracuse outscored Pitt 22-4 in the second. Courtesy of SU Athletics
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The last first quarter Syracuse played might’ve been one of the Orange’s worst quarters ever, let alone during Felisha Legette-Jack’s tenure.
Six points in the opening 10 minutes of SU’s highly anticipated matchup against Louisville last Sunday. Twenty-eight points conceded to the Cardinals in that frame. Thirteen attempted field goals, none finding the net. And, just for good measure, 12 made field goals on 14 attempts from Louisville — a gaudy 85.7% field goal percentage.
If you take out that first frame, the game was actually somewhat competitive. The Orange outscored the Cardinals 59-56 across the final three quarters, even cutting Louisville’s lead to as little as five points.
But that first quarter was just too much to overcome. Legette-Jack knew it, too.
“In that first quarter, I mean, we’re still going out there and believing that somebody’s supposed to be better than us, or we’re not worthy enough,” Legette-Jack said Wednesday. “And the first quarter was indicative of those thought processes.”
The frame was the worst example of a trend that’s plagued Syracuse (20-5, 10-4 Atlantic Coast) throughout the season — its tendency to start slow. Even in wins against Virginia, Cal and Wake Forest, the Orange either left the opening frame on the losing end or struggled to separate. And, despite what the 84-51 final score might indicate, that pattern didn’t change against Pitt (8-18, 1-12 ACC) Thursday.
Yes, Syracuse might’ve been the team that scored first. Yes, the Orange might’ve shot a blistering 9-of-15 from the field. And, yes, SU might have exited its first quarter against the Panthers with an advantage.
But it was a slim lead — just one point, 21-20 — and heading into the second quarter, Pitt held all the momentum. The Panthers flipped a 15-8 deficit to an 18-15 lead, and then regained a 20-18 lead with 47 seconds left after Dominique Darius tied the game with a triple. Pitt entered the second quarter having made all five of its previous field goal attempts.
If it weren’t for Laila Phelia’s triple with 29 seconds left, SU would’ve finished the first quarter staring at a deficit. And Pitt, with all due respect, was not a team Syracuse could’ve afforded a loss to. The Panthers are, if anything, a program in freefall.
Entering Thursday, Pitt had lost 27 consecutive games to Syracuse, dating back to Feb. 2, 2010. The Panthers haven’t made the NCAA Tournament — or finished a season above .500, for that matter — since 2014-15. They’ve cycled through three coaches in the past three years: Suzie McConnell Serio, Lance White and Tory Verdi.
The latter of which, Verdi, got hit with a lawsuit from six former Pitt players Tuesday, alleging abusive coaching methods and negligence from the university, according to the Associated Press. The legal action came amid a season where Verdi’s job security already seemed tenuous, at best, based on performance alone.
In Sports Reference’s Simple Rating System metric — which combines point differential and strength of schedule to assess teams — Pitt is one of three ACC teams with a negative score. Entering Thursday, its -6.94 mark sat over two points below Boston College for last place. The NET concurred with that assessment, ranking the Panthers as the ACC’s worst team at No. 257.
All this to say, the Orange didn’t want to allow Pitt to hang around any longer than they should have. With NCAA Tournament aspirations on the line, style points count double, and struggling to pull away from a Quad 4 opponent was not an ideal scenario to be in after the first quarter.
“What does (an NCAA Tournament team) look like? It looks like a fight,” Legette-Jack said Wednesday. “It looks like you gotta go after this thing, every single possession.”
When Syracuse has needed to elevate itself from subpar competition — SMU and Miami are just two striking examples — Sophie Burrows has been the 3-point shooter it calls upon. And boy did she deliver Thursday.
Forty-seven seconds into the second frame, Burrows sank a triple off a turnover by Pitt’s Theresa Hagans, making it 24-20 SU. Soon after, when Mikayla Johnson missed a 3 of her own, Burrows responded with another to push the lead to 27-20. Twenty-five seconds after that, she weaved her way into the paint for a layup, making it 29-20.
That eight-point flurry represented the entirety of Burrows’ second-quarter scoring production. It was really all Syracuse needed.
“Once we went on the road and (Burrows) found her shot, she’s been a lot better,” SU assistant Amber Moore said in January. “We know Sophie is a 40% 3-point shooter.”
The Orange locked Pitt down on the defensive end, holding the Panthers scoreless until the 4:16 mark of the second quarter. When Uche Izoje released her turnaround jumper to make it 31-20 at the 7:45 mark, it was the last time the game would be within single digits. Syracuse finally began separating itself, outscoring Pitt 22-4 in the frame.
It looked like the absolute antithesis of what appeared in Sunday’s first quarter against Louisville. On Wednesday, Legette-Jack said she made some changes to how her team practices to increase SU’s intensity. The last time she said that, it was before the Orange’s emphatic triple-overtime victory over Cal three weeks ago.
She wouldn’t reveal the specific changes, but she did say the practice changes she made after the Louisville loss were not the same changes she made before Cal. Whatever those alterations were, it seems like they worked swimmingly over the final three quarters of play.
If only they could just figure out those first 10 minutes.
