Brianna Butler stood near the top of the 3-point line in her usual, hunched-over position. She cut to the left corner, caught the inbound pass and sent the 435 fans, who were standing and clapping, to their seats.

The Syracuse guard dropped her hands to her side and jogged back down the court with hardly any reaction. Though she had just hit her third 3-pointer of the game, SU was still down by seven.

“Every time she catches the ball, the ball leaves her hands, the other team puts their arms in the air like, ‘We told you don’t leave her open,’” Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said.

In what Hillsman called the Orange’s worst game of the season, Butler played well, despite cooling down in the second half. She finished second on the team with 19 points, dished out four assists and grabbed three steals, but it wasn’t enough. No. 23 Syracuse (17-8, 7-5 Atlantic Coast) fell to Miami (17-7, 7-4), 85-71, on Thursday, losing to an unranked team for the first time this season.

“Butler is doing the same thing that we need her to do,” Hillsman said. “She’s getting open looks, she’s taking really good shots and I think at the end of the day she has continue to do what she does.”

At times, Butler has shot abysmally this season. On the year, she’s shooting 27.6 percent and against North Carolina on Feb. 5, she hit just 2-of-21 shots and was 0-for-14 beyond the arc.

In the past two games, though, Butler has managed nearly 42 percent from the floor, including an 8-for-20 effort on Thursday.

“As a shooter you go through slumps and I think that these last two games I was able to knock down shots and get out of the slump and recover,” Butler said.

Butler was held without a shot for the first four and a half minutes of the game, until she took a pass from SU guard Cornelia Fondren and knocked down a 3 from the top of the 3-point arc.

The shot put Syracuse ahead, 8-7 — its only lead of the game. Less than two minutes later, she dropped floater through the net, and was 2-for-2.

“It was pretty good being able to hit the shots, but I could have done better,” Butler said.

Butler wasn’t able to score as effectively in the second half, and tried to score inside instead of on the perimeter.

She drove from the right side of the net and airballed a layup attempt wide enough that it hit the support holding up the backboard. Butler persisted, regaining her rhythm with layups and mid-range shots to combat her second-half struggles from the 3-point line.

With Syracuse needing a play down the stretch, Butler was open again in the left corner. A 3 would’ve put Syracuse within eight points with two minutes left, but her shot fell short.

She clenched her teeth as she watched the ball get wedged between the rim and the backboard.

“She was trying to rescue her team there at the end, so she took three or four or five shots probably that weren’t in her rhythm,” Miami head coach Katie Meier said.

Hillsman subbed her out for just three seconds before throwing her back in the game again.

With the game out of reach, Butler hoisted up a 3 that never even connected with the net. As the ball fell to the floor and the final 10 seconds ticked away, she walked toward the bench with a blank stare on her face.

The buzzer sounded and all Butler could do was jog to the locker room, shaking her head.

“I think I did OK,” Butler said. “It’s definitely hard when you’re not coming out with the win at the end.”

Published on February 12, 2015 at 11:39 pm

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