GREENSBORO, N.C. — Brianna Butler flung up a 3 as the game’s final seconds expired. It didn’t hit the rim. It didn’t hit the backboard. It didn’t even hit the net. But it didn’t matter.

By the time it landed harmlessly out of bounds, the other four players on the court had already started trudging over to the bench, waiting to be consoled.

Butler’s misfire only added to a 3-point shooting stat line that would have told a story with or without that attempt.

“That’s everything. When you’re not making shots, you can’t win,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “That’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to be able to put the ball in the basket to win.”

Hillsman’s bluntness was warranted. Syracuse missed its first 16 3-point attempts. And when Maggie Morrison finally hit SU’s first with 9:08 left to play, the Orange was down nine points. The missed shots kept Syracuse out of its press, and allowed 13th-seeded Wake Forest (13-19, 2-14 Atlantic Coast) to explode offensively in the second half as it upset fifth-seeded Syracuse (21-9, 11-5) 85-79 in the second round of the ACC tournament at Greensboro Coliseum.

When the Orange finally did start making its 3s — a stretch of four straight cut a 15-point lead to five with 1:15 to play — it gave itself a chance. But the late flurry of shots only highlighted its disappearance in the game’s first 35 minutes.

“We talked about trying to get out and dictate with our defense,” Demon Deacons head coach Jen Hoover said. “I thought we just did a really good job of locking in and really getting out and contesting them. And that’s our thing always.”

When the Orange couldn’t make shots it couldn’t get into its press. Syracuse started out the game on a 12-5 run, where it turned four WFU turnovers into four baskets. But when the Orange missed seven straight shots, Wake Forest turned its deficit into a five-point lead.

Cornelia Fondren — whose missed 3-point shot with the game tied in the second half didn’t even come close to touching the rim — said that there was a sense of urgency from the team’s scorers to step up with guard Diamond Henderson out after tearing her ACL in the regular season finale.

But that urgency didn’t translate. Butler, who swished her second shot of the game, missed her next 11. Ford, who scored nearly all of her points on second-chance cutbacks, hurt her stat line with four 3-point clanks off the back rim. And seldom-used Isabella Slim fell well short on her three awkward-looking long-range attempts.

“I thought that we wasn’t making shots early,” Hillsman said. “But they did a very good job of just closing us out and making our shooters put the ball on the floor.”

Late in the game, though, when Syracuse needed a miracle run to get back into the game, it all seemed to come together. Peterson swished a 3. Then off a Fondren steal, Butler made her first of the game from the right wing. Forty-four seconds later, Peterson pulled up at the top of key and drained a 3 before Butler connected again with 1:32 to play.

The 3-point shot that had been impossible to find now looked automatic.

“I was able to make the ball go in the basket,” Butler stated, simply. “Once I was able to get that to happen I started to feel it and get back into the game.”

But Syracuse couldn’t get back into the game. And the conference’s worst shooting team completed one of its worst shooting performances of the season.

Published on March 5, 2015 at 3:17 pm

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