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DULUTH, Ga. — Sophie Burrows couldn’t tell you exactly when it was. With the two-and-a-half hours she’d just experienced, it’s hard to blame her. She couldn’t tell you what the time was, how many seconds were left on the clock or even what the score of the game was.

But there was undoubtedly a moment in time — an instance, if you will — where she realized that Uche Izoje was simply not going to allow Syracuse to lose to Cal, no matter how hard it tried to on Thursday.

With the Golden Bears loosening SU’s already-tenuous grip on its lead, the play out of the timeout was drawn up just for Izoje. She executed the play — as well as the next few — perfectly, scoring two straight buckets to give the Orange a much-needed cushion. It was then, Burrows says, that she knew.

“Just dominating, really,” Burrows said postgame. “She did the whole game.”

What else is new? Izoje, once again, dominates an opponent start-to-finish to will the Orange to victory. Grass is green. Sky is blue. Fork found in kitchen. These statements are no longer news, they are accepted as common sense. And likewise, “Izoje records a double-double in an SU victory” is no longer news, either. It’s the expectation, as much as one can expect the sun to rise when they wake up in the morning.

The Orange could’ve easily fallen to Cal on Thursday. At certain points, it nearly seemed like they were doing everything in their power to do so. But at every turn, Izoje dragged No. 7 seed Syracuse (23-7, 12-6 Atlantic Coast), kicking and screaming, to the ACC Tournament Quarterfinals with a dominant 23-point, 10-rebound performance in its 70-59 victory over No. 10 seed Cal (19-14, 9-9 ACC) Thursday.

It was the 14th double-double in Izoje’s transcendent, ACC Rookie of the Year-winning freshman season. It was the fourth consecutive double-double she’s recorded. It was Izoje’s eighth 20-plus point game of the season, six of which have come in 2026.

None of those came close to matching this one’s importance.

“Being able to play around her is pretty awesome,” Burrows said. “She’s a great player.”

Izoje was the reason SU stormed out to a commanding lead. It was her turnaround jumper, after all, that helped the Orange establish a 15-4 advantage less than six minutes in. She began the game by making her first four jumpers, all of which came from that same exact move.

It’s a cheat code. A bug in the system. Bigs aren’t supposed to make moves like that, have that turnaround jumpshot in their bag so consistently, but Izoje just does.

“Honestly, when you have a post player that’s shooting jumpers, it’s tough,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said postgame.

Smith’s game plan heading into Thursday was simple: Get Izoje in foul trouble. In all fairness, it’s a strategy that’s worked well for opponents in the past. She’s fouled out twice — against Duke and Miami — and both times, she finished in single digits. Early in the season, Izoje would often find herself with a quick four fouls and was limited to 20 minutes a game as a result.

Back then, after Izoje scored a then-career-high 17 points against Canisius, Felisha Legette-Jack compared coaching her to Ivan Pavlov’s dog experiment. She said that she just had to constantly coach those tendencies out of the freshman, and over time, she’d get to where she needed to be.

After Syracuse’s win over Cal, Uche Izoje stamps SU’s logo onto the ACC Tournament bracket next to Louisville, its next opponent. Izoje powered the Orange past Cal with 23 points on 57.9% shooting. Courtesy of the Atlantic Coast Conference

Seventeen points? Please, she’d make a mockery out of that if she could just stay out of foul trouble. Just wait. Because once she’s arrived, Legette-Jack said back in November, she’d be more than worth the wait.

It seemed unrealistic at the time. So did the comparisons to freshman phenoms such as Hannah Hidalgo and Paige Bueckers. Izoje had been in the United States for just months at this point, and the expectations already being heaped upon her were that of future No. 1 picks.

But she’s lived up to them at every turn. The endless Rookie of the Week honors, the Rookie of the Year, the All-ACC First-Team selection, those were just confirming what Legette-Jack knew from the moment she first laid eyes on her — Izoje is reaching rarefied air.

“She came through at the end,” Legette-Jack said, referring to Izoje’s performance. “Like the big-time player that she is.”

Smith’s Golden Bear squad did, eventually, get Izoje to foul out. But it was too late. She had already played 37 minutes and 51 seconds by the time she got her fifth foul, and that was 37 minutes and 51 seconds more than Cal could withstand.

In the third quarter, Cal center Sakima Walker figured Izoje out. Walker used her patience, she said postgame, and noticed that Izoje didn’t want her to get to her body. So, after a first half where Izoje blocked three shots against her, Walker flipped the switch.

“I just used that to my advantage to get to the positions I wanted to get to,” Walker said.

That’s how Walker finished with a team-leading 19 points, nearly singlehandedly willing the Golden Bears back into the game after a 37-16 halftime deficit. She kept making bucket after bucket, and SU’s lead kept dwindling as the game went on.

At the game’s nadir, the Orange were up just 52-47. It wasn’t that she gave in, but right then, Izoje felt herself freeze up. The Golden Bears were finally rising to the occasion, and it seemed like Izoje, comparatively, was wilting under the pressure.

“Before the game, I already told my teammates: ‘When (you) see me like that, (you) should talk to me,” Izoje said postgame.

So, they did. With Dominique Darius out after a third-quarter injury, the offense was going to have to run through Izoje. There was no way around it. She scored nine of SU’s 20 fourth-quarter points and answered the call at every chance she had. During a timeout, Legette-Jack joked, Khyreed Carter nearly got a technical foul trying to get the team to force-feed Izoje. The team was hers. The Orange would live — or die — with Izoje.

You know the rest. Izoje would be damned if she let this team die in her hands.

“She wanted this more than I thought,” Legette-Jack said postgame.

Published on March 5, 2026 at 10:27 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO