Syracuse shuts down Clemson in the Last Quarter, 83-62

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The No. 23 Syracuse Women's Basketball team used a strong fourth quarter to put away heavy underdog Clemson 83-62 at the Carrier Dome on Thursday night. The Orange is now on a three-game winning streak and 7-3 in conference play.

Slow start

Starting off sluggish, the Orange (17-6, 7-3  ACC) played down to the competition.

Although having scored early in the first quarter Syracuse was slow to continuously get shots. The Orange lead was only 9-6 four minutes in.

"We didn't make shots early so we didn't get our pressure set," Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said.

 A 3-pointer by Abby Grant gave the Orange a
23-15 lead at the end of the first quarter.

"We were able to hang in there," Clemson head coach Audra Smith said.

Syracuse led 39-26 at the half.

"The whole game we weren't playing as hard as we can," Syracuse's Brianna Butler said. "We weren't able to knock down our shots for the first three quarters. So we definitely wanted to come out in the fourth quarter and increase our lead and just play clean. And make up for what we did in the first half."

Orange pressure and the triple threat

What really hurt Clemson (4-18, 0-9) was its 33 turnovers and allowing the Orange to collect 23 offensive rebounds. Syracuse's continuous press eventually led to 18 steals.

"You get those second and third chances to score the ball," Syracuse's Brittney Sykes said."We have a lot of three-point threats. So if you get the offensive rebound or you turn them over, we can get easy transition points. So we can get transitions 3's and easy layups. If we can get those one to five passes. Transition from turnovers in the  back court or front court that's easy buckets for us. We can just run the score up and keep our pressure up."

The Orange had 14 threes, five by Brianna Butler. Maggie Morrison added three, Alexis Peterson  and Grant had two each, while Sykes and Taylor Ford had one apiece.

"Coach really wanted us to pick up our intensity and I was able to knock down shots, because my teammates were able to put me in the opportunity to do that," Butler said.

Danielle Edwards led Clemson with 11 points. She was the only Tigers player in double-figures.

"We won," Sykes said. "But as always there's a lot of things that we have to improve on and play clean basketball. A lot of our possessions were our fault. Whether we lost the ball or we turned the ball over. We missed an assignment."

Leading 60-47, the Orange went on a 10-0 run to start the fourth quarter and that was that.

"They're just very long and athletic. They play hard," Smith said. "That's the magic to the madness of everything in basketball is that you play hard. You put that effort into it. And they want to do it. It's like a shark in the water smelling blood. They're just very active."


Up Next

The Orange has one more home game on Sunday against Georgia Tech in the Dome at 2 p.m.
Then it's road games at Virginia and North Carolina State, home against Florida State and away against Pittsburgh and Boston College.

"We're trying to win ten conference games," Hillsman said.

SU is currently fourth in the ACC standings, trailing Notre Dame, Louisville and Florida State.

"We have a great opportunity to do something that has never been done," Sykes said. "That's to finish top four in the ACC. We just got to come out in every game that we have left and just beat our opponent. That way we can continue to build on history and get a good seed in the post season."