Syracuse overwhelmed by No. 18 Georgia Tech’s height, falls 65-55

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Alaysia Styles drove down the right side of the lane, reached the baseline and fired a bounce pass to her left to find Teisha Hyman, hoping she could get a clean shot off of. Instead, Digna Strautmane, Lorela Cubaj and Nerea Hermosa swarmed the guard, raising their arms high over a crouched Hyman. Her shot hardly rattled the weaving thicket of arms from the three Georgia Tech players.

By that point, Syracuse had already turned a 16-point deficit into a one-score game. Carried by a 44% third-quarter shooting performance, the Orange stormed back to put pressure on Georgia Tech. But SU was still trying to overcome its lack of size and poor defensive play in the paint that had plagued it throughout the game, and that has been a constant downfall throughout its season.

A litany of forced turnovers and an improved approach to attacking passing lanes helped the Orange as the game progressed. They shot better and started penetrating the lockdown GT defense, but it wasn’t enough to dissipate the reality of Georgia Tech’s defensive prowess. The Yellow Jackets (14-4, 5-2 Atlantic Coast) overmatched Syracuse (8-9, 1-6) down low on post plays and driving opportunities and shut down SU’s offense in a 65-55 victory. 

“Every night it gets harder and harder, and Georgia Tech is one of the taller teams. They used that to their advantage,” Styles said. “All you can do is your best, (and) we did our best in regards to their bigs.”

Syracuse got off to a dismal start from the field, unable to find its first points until Hyman forced her way through the Georgia Tech’s defense alone and got a layup to fall just under four minutes into the game. 

Najé Murray continued her recent slide, too, as she was unable to make a shot until knocking in a jump shot four and a half minutes into the third quarter. She was called for a travel early in the first quarter while trying to dribble around the top of the key and also had a shot blocked and missed two consecutive 3-point attempts late in the second quarter. 

And despite Chrislyn Carr coming into the game on a hot streak, her performance mirrored that of Murray’s. With Hyman falling into early foul trouble, the three-pronged backcourt became mostly ineffective throughout the game. Chrislyn finished the first half with just four points after a 17-point outing against No. 3 Louisville. 

Like most teams SU has faced this season, acting head coach Vonn Read knew Georgia Tech’s size could challenge the Orange, adding that the Yellow Jackets’ lineup essentially featured four forwards, including Cubaj, who entered Thursday night fourth in the country in rebounds per game. Read said allowing points in the paint has hurt the Orange in recent games — including their game against Louisville when they allowed 46 — meaning that facing one of the nation’s top defenses could hurt Syracuse on both ends.

“(The Yellow Jackets) do make it tough because they’re good defensively, and they shrink the game offensively,” Read said. “They take it out of the ball and make you work hard on defense.”

Georgia Tech continued its dominant defensive performance in the early stages of Thursday’s game, snuffing out numerous driving attempts from Hyman and Murray. Shortly after another GT jump shot fell in the first quarter, Murray attempted to drive into the left side of the paint. As she stormed toward the basket and switched to her left arm for the shot, Cubaj swatted away her attempt to keep the Yellow Jackets lead at six.

Despite Syracuse’s efforts to try and mitigate points inside the paint, Georgia Tech routinely dished passes down to the post, leading to drawn fouls and quick baskets from close range. Midway through the third quarter, SU’s defense relaxed enough to let Hermosa slip past Styles, allowing for her to attempt an uncontested layup. While she missed the first, no SU player crashed the glass, so Hermosa collected the rebound and quickly scored on the second-chance attempt. 

Then on Georgia Tech’s first possession of the second quarter, Hermosa collected a pass inside from the top of the key and pivoted before going up for the turnaround layup and easily drawing a foul on Styles.

“When we play bigger opponents we have to rely on our speed in defense,” Hyman said. “We have to play big with more aggression.”

Foul trouble has plagued the Orange since entering the heart of ACC play, something Murray originally attributed to the aggressive nature of SU’s play, but both she and Read said earlier this week that practices weren’t necessarily focused on mitigating fouls. At the end of the first half, Georgia Tech was already 11-of-12 from the free-throw line, and three fouls from both Chrislyn and Hyman forced Read to sub in Nyah Wilson off the bench.

Read dismissed concerns that the team’s five starters, all of whom average more than 28 minutes per game, are carrying too much of the load for Syracuse. But he also acknowledged that the team isn’t relying on the full-court press as much as he’d like to since injuries forced him to shrink his bench, limiting his personnel options with conference play now in full swing. 

“We don’t press as much as we like to or play the way that we want to. We’re just trying to save legs and give ourselves a chance for 40 minutes,” Read said. 

The head coach doesn’t like to play his starters with more than two fouls, but once the Orange were able to carve through enough of Georgia Tech’s lead with a brief run in the third quarter, his regular starters played the majority of the fourth quarter in hopes of completing the comeback. 

Whether it was the regular starting five or a mix of Alaina Rice and Wilson, no one consistently stopped Georgia Tech down low long enough to earn a lead. To begin the fourth quarter, Strautmane threw a pass inside to Eylia Love, who easily shimmied around Christianna Carr for a layup. To end the game, Hermosa drove down the lane and lofted up another shot to extend Georgia Tech’s lead back to double digits, putting the game out of reach for an SU team too small and too thin to handle the Yellow Jackets.

“(It’s) really hard to score against them. They’re the best defensive team in the country,” Read said. “Their goal was just to pound the ball inside on us.”