After four tune-up nonconference games, Syracuse flexed its muscles in its second real test of the season Thursday night.

The Orange (6-0), which cruised to victory in its previous four games by an average margin of 52 points, stayed hot and defeated Texas (3-2), 77-65, in the Paradise Jam at St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thursday night.

Four scorers reached double digits for the Orange as sophomore Brianna Butler spearheaded the offense with 18 points and fellow guard Brittney Sykes added 17.

After opening its season at Washington State – a Pacific-12 Conference member – SU faced teams from the weaker Ivy League, Mid-Eastern Athletic and America East Conferences. But with its strong showing over the Big 12 Longhorns, Syracuse proved its four blowout wins were no fluke.

“I believe we had more intensity than them,” senior guard La’Shay Taft said in a postgame Orange All-Access interview. “We played hard, we tried after all the loose balls, do our jobs and we handled it.”

The Orange held a strong grip early on and led for most of the game’s first 10 minutes. A 3-pointer by Brady Sanders put Texas ahead 15-13, but SU’s Taylor Ford connected on a 3 at the 8:30 mark for the last lead change of the game.

Ford’s shot from deep sparked a 9-0 run over two minutes that sprung Syracuse in front by seven points. Behind Butler’s nine first-half points and 12 turnovers committed by Texas, the Orange led by as much as 11 in the opening frame, but only took a five-point advantage into the locker room at halftime.

A Longhorns free throw to begin the second half sliced the lead to four, but a Butler 3 and Sykes layup pushed it up to nine. Texas drew within seven points twice within the first six and a half minutes of the second half, but never cut the lead shorter than that.

Taft hit a 3 to extend the Orange’s lead to 42-32 at the 13:35 point. The shot, followed by two more Taft 3-pointers within the next minute, started a 19-9 stretch that essentially put the game away for SU.

“She was huge,” head coach Quentin Hillsman said in a postgame Orange All-Access interview. “She’s a rhythm shooter, so once she starts making shots and got going, I knew we had to continue to go to her and get her open looks.”

Syracuse’s advantage ballooned as high as 23 points. The Longhorns rode a 17-8 run over the last three minutes, but it was too late. By the final whistle, Texas turned the ball over 23 times and handed SU’s offense plenty of transition chances.

“We did a really good job of capitalizing on them, too,” Hillsman said. “At the end of the day, it’s about getting more possessions and creating opportunities for ourselves and our team did a very good job of doing that.”