The Syracuse Orange knew it would be a tough task to take out the #2 seed Louisville Cardinals, but playing without guard Dominique Darius left the Orange unable to match the Louisville offense. The Cardinals led from wire to wire on their way to an 87-61 win.
Uche Izoje led the Orange with 22 points and 9 rebounds. She suffered an ankle injury in the fourth quarter, but briefly returned to the game, so hopefully she’ll be good to go for the NCAA Tournament first round. Sophie Burrows had 12 points and 9 rebounds while freshman Jazmyn Cooper came off the bench with a career high of 11 points.
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Like the regular season meeting, Syracuse couldn’t hit a shot early. Both teams were slow out of the gate, but Louisville was up 8-o before Laila Phelia got the Orange’s first basket over four minutes into the game. The Cardinals kept the pressure on Syracuse and a late tip by Uche Izoje made it 25-12 after the first. Without Darius, the Orange struggled to get into their offense as Louisville fronted Izoje to keep the ball out of her hands.
Izoje got going in the second quarter pouring in 10 points as the Orange tried to cut into the Cardinals lead. Louisville just had too many weapons on the night as they shot 56% from the field and had six players in double figures led by Tajianna Roberts’ 17 points. Despite Izoje’s scoring, the Orange were only able to cut one point off the Louisville lead.
The third quarter started like the first with the Cardinals scoring the first 10 points and pushing their lead to 22. To their credit, Syracuse didn’t fold and the got right back into it keyed by a 14-2 run closing the gap to 57-47 and forcing a Louisville timeout.
After the timeout, the Cardinals put out the upset hopes by scoring the last 5 points of the third and first 8 points of the fourth quarter to get their lead back to 69-48. The Orange were held to 34% shooting from the field on the evening and made just 4 of 25 attempts from 3.
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In the postgame press conference, Felisha Legette-Jack wasn’t able to confirm that Darius will be cleared for the NCAA Tournament. The Orange will wait have over a week for Darius and Izoje to get treatment before the team learns who and where they will play….but you don’t have to wait until Selection Sunday on March 15th because I’m going to tell you that Syracuse will be heading to Storrs to play in the 8/9 game with UConn once again waiting should they advance.
