Syracuse Orange women’s basketball dropped its second game in a row for the first time all season on Thursday, following up a loss at N.C. State with a 72-62 loss to Notre Dame in South Bend. The loss drops Syracuse to 21-7 and 11-6 in the ACC, in a five-way tie for 5th with one game to play before the ACC Tournament.
The Orange turned it over 22 times, including seven steals by Hannah Hidalgo, the NCAA’s steals leader. While Syracuse made multiple runs to keep this game close throughout, it was far
too easy for the Fighting Irish to respond with a run of their own, whether it was a Hidalgo steal or a different kind of turnover opening the floodgates for transition baskets.
At the end of the first quarter, Hidalgo completed an Irish fury, with two steals turning into two layups, turning the Syracuse three-point lead into a one-point deficit. The second layup was an and-one, and Notre Dame grabbed the offensive rebound off the missed free throw and scored to go ahead by three heading into the second quarter.
A series of free throws and stops in the third quarter helped the Orange turn a 10-point deficit into a one-point lead, but another final possession bucket for Notre Dame gave them the lead right back heading into the fourth.
With the game still in the balance in the fourth quarter, the Irish scored five quick points within a minute and change, and the margin was never back to one possession. Notre Dame pulled away as SU shot 5 for 18 from the field in the fourth.
Laila Phelia scored a team-high 23 points, but shot just one for seven from beyond the arc, and Sophie Burrows didn’t add a ton from three either, shooting one of four. SU rebounded 17 of their misses, creating extra opportunities, but couldn’t turn those offensive boards into enough baskets.
Syracuse got another double-double from Uche Izoje, but she was scoreless in the fourth quarter.
Against the eight other teams in the ACC with double-digit conference wins, Syracuse is now just 2-6, with the wins coming at Virginia and against Clemson. Each loss aside from North Carolina has been by double digits as well.
SU is likely to get either the five or six seed in the ACC Tournament if it defeats Boston College on Sunday in the final game of the regular season.
