Women's Basketball

Syracuse sizzles offensively in 2nd half after struggling in 1st

Margaret Lin | Photo Editor

Syracuse forward Brianna Butler goes up for a layup in SU's 67-36 win over Pittsburgh on Sunday. Butler scored 11 second-half points, spearheading a strong frame for the Orange.

As miserably as Pittsburgh struggled to convert a basket in the first half, it wasn’t much prettier on Syracuse’s end of the court.

The inconsistency that has head coach Quentin Hillsman feeling uncomfortable about SU’s chances of making the NCAA tournament allowed the Panthers to stay in the game for far too long.

But after halftime, something clicked. Syracuse started hitting its shots.

“Our team loves it when our shooters shoot,” sophomore Brittney Sykes said. “That’s what they do, and when they’re making shots it’s even better because now they’re opening the floor.”

Syracuse tied a season-low with 26 first-half points and kept Pittsburgh — and its one basket — within 15 points at halftime Sunday. But the Syracuse (20-8, 9-6 Atlantic Coast) offense found a rhythm in the second frame behind Brianna Butler’s 11 points in the frame and sailed to a 67-36 victory over Pittsburgh (11-17, 3-11) on Senior Day in the Carrier Dome.



The win clinched a first-round bye for SU in the ACC tournament, but Hillsman has his doubts about whether the Orange’s season will extend past that tournament. With one regular-season game remaining before the conference tournament, he’ll need his shooters to perform less like the 10th-ranked 3-point shooting team in the ACC and more like the unit that buried Pittsburgh on Sunday.

“Shooters have to make shots,” Hillsman said. “And they did. As long as we make seven, eight 3s a game, I think that we’ll be OK.”

Aside from a Sykes layup to end the stand-and-clap 1:13 in, the Orange blew layups, mid-range jumpers and 3s for a 1-for-9 record at the 13:53 point. Eleven offensive rebounds in the half offered Syracuse plenty of second chances, but more often than not the tip-ins and putback attempts were awry.

Finally, Taylor Ford made a pair of layups within a minute of each other and added a free throw to break the low-scoring tie. La’Shay Taft and Butler drained back-to-back 3s 28 seconds apart for a 10-point lead nine minutes into the game.

Briana Day’s two layups four minutes later spread the gap to 19 points, but from there just a Sykes transition layup fell through the hoop out of SU’s next nine shots the rest of the half. The Orange finished the frame converting just 30 percent from the floor and made 2-of-11 from deep for an 18.2-percent clip.

“It was kind of one of those sloppy halves where obviously we didn’t shoot the ball very well,” Hillsman said, “and Pittsburgh wasn’t scoring also.”

The second half was a different story — for Syracuse, at least. What was a 15-point game soon became a 30-point blowout.

Out of the high post, Shakeya Leary hit Butler on the wing for a 3. Freshman Isabella Slim, a shooter Hillsman has maintained confidence in throughout her slumps, canned her first 3-pointer since Jan. 19.

When Leary’s aggressive post moves forced the Panthers to offer help inside, the outside opened back up. Crisp ball movement around the perimeter led to senior Rachel Coffey’s 3 to put SU up 30.

Butler, an up-and-down shooter SU might live and die by come playoff time, connected on the open looks she had missed prior in the game. A mid-range jumper and her third and fourth 3-pointers of the game wrapped up her game-high, 16-point day.

“My teammates have set me up really well to knock down the open shot,” Butler said. “In the first half, I wasn’t shooting in rhythm. Second half, I came out knowing I needed to knock down shots.”

Even Sykes, a slasher who attacks the rim much more frequently than she spots up, drained a 3 from the wing in the final minutes. When it was all said and done, Syracuse shot 55.6 percent from the floor and 58 percent from 3 in the second half.

That’s the kind of shooting that just might be enough to give SU a shot at the NCAA tournament.

“Once we see ‘Shay hitting a couple, Bri hitting a couple, we kind of feel bad for the other team,” Sykes said, “because now they’re on and we just keep giving them the ball knowing that they’re going to knock down shots.”





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