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Najé Murray drove down the right side of the lane but was met by three NC State defenders. Still, Murray decided to take the shot herself. She floated the ball in the air in hopes of a layup, but the ball was instead met in mid-air by Jada Boyd’s hand.

Kai Crutchfield gathered the ball for the Wolfpack, and they quickly ran out in transition before the Orange could react. Jakia Brown-Turner received the pass in the corner and drove as Alaysia Styles looked to stop her. But Styles stepped out of the way, giving Brown-Turner a wide-open layup and NC State a 26-6 lead, just one instance of poor Syracuse offense leading to easy points for the Wolfpack.

On Thursday, Syracuse was handed a 102-53 loss at home against Virginia Tech, its biggest margin of defeat on the season. On Sunday, Syracuse (11-15, 4-12 Atlantic Coast Conference) didn’t fare much better against No. 4 NC State (25-3, 16-1), the top team in the ACC, as the Orange got off to a sluggish start and played poorly on offense, eventually falling 95-53.

“NC State came out and jumped on us a little bit,” head coach Vonn Read said.

The Wolfpack opened the game on an 11-0 scoring run. Elissa Cunane won the tipoff and Raina Perez hit a jumper from the top of the key. Chrislyn Carr tried to match that with a layup of her own for Syracuse, but it was tightly contested and she couldn’t convert.

Perez confidently shot a 3-pointer after making her first basket, but she missed. Still, Brown-Turner got the rebound for the Wolfpack, leading to second chance points. Syracuse quickly gave up the ball after Teisha Hyman took a pull-up jumper that missed early into the shot clock and then gave up a field goal on its third straight possession after Brown-Turner hit a 3.

The Wolfpack forced Read to call his first timeout of the game less than three minutes in after Hyman over-dribbled and turned the ball over at the top of the key to give NC State an easy transition layup and an 11-0 lead.

Throughout the game, SU’s bad plays outweighed the good ones, as most looks were early into the possession after barely rotating the ball around.

Syracuse got its first points after the time out when Murray caught a pass and quickly drove on the right side for a layup. SU had an opportunity to cut the lead to six after Cunane missed a post-up shot, but Murray jacked up a 3 just one pass into the possession, which led to an easy look for NC State in transition.

Possessions later, and with a defender in her face, Murray launched another 3 that missed off the back of the rim. And late in the third quarter, Murray — who only scored three points in the second half — took another ill-advised 3 with Crutchfield in her face. Crutchfield blocked the shot, gathered the ball and the Wolfpack got a layup seconds later to take a 33-point lead.

Possessions often revealed the Orange showing no signs of organization and struggling to move the ball smoothly, forcing them to play an isolation-heavy offense.

To start the second quarter, Murray tried setting up the offense but lost the ball at the top of the key to Crutchfield. The next play, Hyman looked to give the Orange a spark and stole the ball from Perez on the other end, but after trying to create a play in transition, Perez snuck behind her and stole the ball back before finding a cherry-picking Camille Hobby for an easy layup to extend the lead to 30-9.

On one offensive possession in the third quarter, Syracuse looked stagnant and unorganized. Hyman had the ball at the top of the key on the right side and was quickly met by defenders on the drive. It didn’t even matter, though, since Christianna Carr was called for an offensive foul.

The further Syracuse got into the game, the further it fell deeper into a hole against the Wolfpack. Overall, SU finished 25.7% from 3 and 27.5% from the field, and it only assisted on nine of its 19 field goals. But the Orange never looked to change their approach and kept shooting contested 3s and jump shots.

After Syracuse went on an 11-0 run in the second quarter to cut NC State’s lead to 12, the Wolfpack quickly scored and extended their lead to 14. Styles then took a jumper with a hand in her face the next possession, and Murray coughed the ball up to Kayla Jones to allow NC State to go back up 16.

In the fourth quarter, NC State hit a layup and Chrislyn quickly dribbled the ball up and passed to Murray on the move. Murray, who was 2-for-6 from 3-point range before her shot, chucked up a shot from beyond the arc without hesitation and it hit off the back rim.

Later in the quarter, Alaina Rice had a fast break layup opportunity and jump-stopped in an attempt to get Jones to bite on a pump fake. Jones didn’t bite and instead of passing the ball back out to the perimeter, Rice shot the layup, which Jones contested. The Auburn transfer missed and put her head down in frustration, with her team down by 40.

“We’ll get a little bit of a rest here,” Read said on preparing for the final stretch of the season. “Get back to practicing a little bit.”

Published on February 20, 2022 at 4:31 pm

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