WBB : SU doomed by poor offensive performance in loss to Hoyas
It was a start that Syracuse could not afford to have against its conference rival. Eight minutes in and the Orange had already thrown the game away.
Twelve consecutive missed field goal attempts and eight turnovers allowed No. 18 Georgetown to build an insurmountable 16-1 lead right out of the gate.
The poor shooting and lack of ball security that have plagued Syracuse throughout the season reached new heights, as the Orange was dominated in nearly every facet of the game in a 69-42 loss to Georgetown in Washington, D.C., at McDonough Arena on Sunday. Syracuse coughed up the ball a season-high 30 times and the Hoyas benefited, scoring 38 points off those turnovers. SU also scored a season-low 42 points.
‘We just threw the ball away and they shot the ball especially well,’ Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘They are the lowest shooting team in the conference, and they made some shots with some kids who don’t normally make shots. You’ve got to make shots.’
Georgetown entered the game shooting a measly 35.4 percent on the season, last in the Big East. But as SU turned the ball over more and more throughout the game, the Hoyas got easy looks in transition and erased any offensive deficiencies.
GU shot the ball unexpectedly well, shooting 25-of-60 (41.7 percent) from the field and 50 percent on 24 attempts from 3-point range. Sugar Rodgers led all scorers with 23 points on 9-of-17 shooting.
With the Orange already down by 15 with 7:40 left in the first half, the mistakes began to mount and snowball out of control.
After La’Shay Taft missed a 3-pointer, Shakeya Leary grabbed the offensive rebound, but the ball was stolen away. Rodgers, the Big East’s leading scorer, hit a 3 on the Hoyas’ ensuing possession, giving them their largest lead to that point. The Orange turned the ball over on four consecutive possessions following Leary’s turnover and the Hoyas’ lead grew to 31-10.
The Orange gave up the basketball 19 times in the opening stanza, and Georgetown led 41-13 at the break.
‘When you turn the ball over, you don’t have very good court balance,’ Hillsman said, ‘so we started turning the ball over and not getting our court balance and that hurt us some in the game.’
With the Orange struggling to keep possession, SU made just four field goal attempts in the first half. As the Hoyas’ lead grew larger, Syracuse looked to get back in the game by shooting jump shots, which strayed far from the Hillsman’s philosophy to get the ball inside.
The switch to an unfamiliar game plan failed to produce positive results, and SU was never able to get back into the game in the second half.
Elashier Hall and Taft shot a combined 0-of-18 from the field for the Orange. Iasia Hemingway and Kayla Alexander paced SU with 14 and 13 points, respectively.
The Orange shot just 15-of-60 from the floor, and despite outrebounding the Hoyas 45-35, SU yielded nearly just as many second-chance points as its opponent. Hillsman said it wasn’t as much what the Hoyas were doing defensively, but rather that the Orange struggled to make the most of its opportunities.
‘We got some really good looks, we just didn’t make shots,’ Hillsman said. ‘I thought that we got some good looks at the rim, and we weren’t able to make those shots.’
Published on January 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm
