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With under 10 seconds remaining in the first half, Virginia Tech’s Aisha Sheppard made her move. She steered right, toward a screen, while Tiana Mangakahia defended. As Mangakahia made contact with screener Elizabeth Kitley, SU’s fifth-year senior lost her balance.

Sheppard reversed course, dribbling left. The guard began driving toward the basket, as Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi left the paint to defend. With six seconds left, it became clear that Sheppard had no intention of passing. 

After losing Mangakahia, Sheppard had Djaldi-Tabdi defending on her heels. VT’s leading scorer then pulled the ball back and stepped back behind the three-point line. Djaldi-Tabdi took a step back to regain her balance before lurching out in a shot contest. But it was too late. Sheppard’s shot was already on its way, falling through the net to push Virginia Tech’s lead to 44-22.

After the Hokies doubled up Syracuse in the first half, Virginia Tech (12-7, 7-7 Atlantic Coast Conference) held on for a 76-68 victory over SU (11-6, 8-6) on Sunday, going 10-24 from 3. Sheppard led all scorers with 23 points after knocking down five 3’s. In the first half, the Hokies passed around Syracuse’s lackadaisical zone defense, often finding the open shooter. After taking a 5-4 lead on a triple just two minutes into the game, Virginia Tech never trailed again.

“They played that zone, and we just put someone in the high post and let them go to work,” Virginia Tech guard Georgia Amoore said. “If they sucked into the high post, then we had shooters on the outside, so it just depended on picking your poison.”

The Hokies hit their first four three-point attempts to crack open SU’s zone defense after the shots fell. 

With SU’s players forced to extend the defense, opportunities opened up for Kitley — the reigning ACC Freshman of the Year. VT was already ahead by 10 points with two minutes remaining in the quarter. The Hokies grabbed an offensive rebound and passed to Sheppard at the top of the key.

As soon as Sheppard caught the ball, she lobbed a pass inside to Kitley, who had interior positioning against Djaldi-Tabdi. With SU’s forward suddenly behind Kitley, there was no one between VT’s post player and the basket. An easy bank shot pushed the Hokie lead to 20-8.

“We executed, got the ball where we wanted,” Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks said. “We controlled the narrative of how the game was going to be.”

But Virginia Tech’s 44 first-half points weren’t just because of hot shooting. Many of the shots from Sheppard and sharp-shooter Cayla King were open looks at the basket. 

Syracuse often failed to rotate in defense in the opening 20 minutes. Virginia Tech’s quick passes around the wing and into the high post often forced SU’s players to scramble to prevent scores. More often than not, SU’s defense wasn’t able to keep up with the movement of the ball. 

“Our starts are shaky,” Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “We can’t keep digging ourselves in this kind of hole and try to fight back every game to get back into the game.”

Early in the second quarter, in the middle of a 22-4 Virginia Tech run, the Hokies exploited the zone by passing to Kitley on the high post. With the defense spread on the wings and freshman Kamilla Cardoso planted in the paint, there was no one within feet of Kitley. As soon as the sophomore caught the pass, she spun around and nailed a free-throw line jumper. 

Midway through the first half, Brooks forced the Orange to play man-to-man defense.

“We knew they’re a zone team, but we were going to run some sets to make them have a man-look,” Brooks said. “They have different actions in different movements that we know if we… countered it, they were going to start playing man-to-man and we could get those one-on-one opportunities.”

Those opportunities generally led to points for the Hokies. A few possessions after Kitley’s free-throw jumper, Sheppard had a one-on-one opportunity with SU forward Digna Strautmane at the high post. 

The 6-foot-2 Strautmane had to take into account Sheppard’s speed and hedged toward the basket to prevent a drive-by layup. Instead, VT’s senior took a couple of jab steps to keep Strautmane off-balance before rising up and nailing a jumper.

In the second half, Syracuse played with more “energy and effort,” Hillsman said. But after falling behind by 22 at halftime, there wasn’t enough time left for Syracuse to regroup and whittle down VT’s lead.

A Virginia Tech shooter aims high above Syracuse guard Priscilla Williams. Courtesy of Jon Fleming

Hillsman implemented a full-court press after falling behind by double-digits. The strategy worked to begin the second half, and SU sprinted out to an 8-0 run. After two Cardoso free throws, Mangakahia nailed back-to-back 3’s on fast breaks. 

But after the first few minutes, Virginia Tech adjusted its offense, keeping all four players in its half-court to receive inbound passes. 

“We just figured that, you know, we needed to attack them the same way they were attacking us,” Sheppard said. “Once we got an angle on them, we knew we just could go by and then get into our offense.”

On multiple occasions, Syracuse brought all five defenders to defend Virginia Tech’s side of the court, leaving SU’s basket wide open.

That led to a wide-open Sheppard layup after she ran toward the basket on one inbound. Virginia Tech’s inbounder simply fired a pass past all five Syracuse defenders, and Sheppard easily extended the Hokie lead to 70-57. 

While Syracuse outscored Virginia Tech by 14 in the second half, VT slowed down possessions, running set plays or just dribbling while the clock wound down. After a barrage of first-half 3’s and open shots around the court, Syracuse dug itself in a hole it couldn’t climb out of.

Four Virginia Tech players scored in double figures, as the best 3-point shooting team in the ACC hit nearly 42% of its looks from behind the arc. And after the first 20 minutes, it didn’t matter how well Syracuse played in the second half. A 22-point first-half deficit seemed insurmountable.

“At the end of the day, just can’t dig that kind of hole,” Hillsman said. “Then to play that kind of second half, you just shot yourself in the foot in the first half.”

Published on February 21, 2021 at 4:41 pm

Contact Thomas: [email protected] | @ThomasShults_