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Syracuse opened its season with an offensive clinic. The Orange downed Niagara 108-84 — eight points off a program-high they set in a 116-65 rout of Central Connecticut State in December 2021. In the victory over the Purple Eagles Tuesday, Kyra Wood led the way with 19 points and eight rebounds and six SU players scored in double-digits.

Syracuse’s contest with Saint Joseph’s looked to be another comfortable win, but it didn’t pan out that way. SU jumped out to an eight-point lead after the first quarter, but the Hawks clawed their way back to a three-point halftime lead, in large part due to 15 second-quarter points by Talya Brugler.

The Hawks’ lead ballooned to 14 after the third quarter, forcing an uphill climb for SU down the stretch. The Orange couldn’t claw back and snapped their 27-game winning streak in home nonconference matchups, dating back to a loss to then-No. 1 Oregon in 2019.

Here are some observations from Syracuse’s (1-1, 0-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) 84-70 loss to Saint Joseph’s (2-0, 0-0 Atlantic 10):

Hawks blocks

Early in the game, the Orange were frequently blocked by the Hawks, with Saint Joseph’s notching four rejections within the first five minutes. A minute in, Wood posted up and hooked a shot, but it was denied by Laura Ziegler.

Three minutes in, Georgia Woolley was rejected by Emma Boslet and then Mackenzie Smith less than 30 seconds later. Angelica Velez was the next to see her shot sent back when a jumper was blocked by Boslet.

SU adjusted, not seeing a rejection for the rest of the first quarter, but the early blocks handed Saint Joseph’s a 7-6 lead midway through the opening quarter.

The issue reappeared late in the first half with Izabel Varejão getting denied twice. Both Smith and Boslet finished the first half with two blocks, and the Hawks totaled six — doubling their game average from last season. Ultimately, the Hawks finished with seven blocks with Ziegler also nabbing two.

Cleaning the offensive glass

After Syracuse’s season-opening win over Niagara, head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said she wanted to see her team grab 20 offensive rebounds per game. The Orange only registered 15 against the Purple Eagles on Tuesday. The Hawks had averaged a lowly 9.7 offensive rebounds a year ago.

The Orange only needed two seconds to notch their first offensive rebound of the game when Sophie Burrows cleaned up the scraps from a Varejão miss. Burrows snatched another offensive board with less than seven minutes left. At the end of one quarter, SU had five offensive rebounds and had six points off of cleaning the glass.

Syracuse added three more offensive rebounds in the second quarter and scored four points off of them. But Saint Joseph’s also managed eight first-half offensive boards. By the 3:02 mark of the third quarter, Saint Joseph’s, whose tallest player was 6-foot-2, had 12 rebounds to SU’s 10, which had four players over 6-foot in its lineup.

Down the stretch, Syracuse grabbed the lead in the category, getting 15 offensive rebounds to Saint Joseph’s 14. But it still didn’t reach Legette-Jack’s objection and it was not enough for the win.

Talya Brugler’s takeover

Saint Joseph’s senior forward, Brugler, scored its first points on the day with a pair of free throws. A minute later, she handed the Hawks their first lead of the game with a 3-pointer from the top of the arc to make it 7-6.

With Syracuse up 22-14 after one quarter, Brugler took the game over and single-handedly went on an 8-0 run to tie the score at 22-22. She connected on a pair of 3s and a layup to level proceedings at the 7:14 mark. Less than two minutes later, she grabbed an offensive rebound before dishing it to Ziegler, who made a triple to hand Saint Joseph’s a 25-24 lead.

But Brugler wasn’t done there. She sank another 3 — her fifth of the game — to give the Hawks a four-point cushion at 30-26. Brugler then pulled up from the free-throw line to net a jumper to maintain Saint Joseph’s four-point lead. At halftime, the 6-foot-1 forward had 20 points — 15 of which came in the second quarter — shot 7-for-9 from the field and 4-for-4 from behind the arc.

Brugler picked up where she left off in the third quarter. Four minutes in, she canned a corner triple to push the Hawks’ lead to nine and remained perfect from 3-point range. Brugler finally missed a 3 with a little over eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. But she still finished with 29 points on 10-for-15 shooting to go along with six rebounds and three assists.

3-point discrepancy

Last year, according to Her Hoop Stats, nearly 30% of Saint Joseph’s points came from triples, as it shot 33.7% from 3, good enough for 66th in the country. Meanwhile for SU, 28.5% of its points came from 3s and now-graduated Dyaisha Fair averaged 3.6 3s per game.

In the first half, the Hawks attempted 16 3-pointers to SU’s four. Brugler sank each of her four attempts, while Smith made one of his six tries from beyond the arc. Though Smith heated up in the second half, going 2-for-2 on 3s in the third quarter before making another one in the fourth. The Hawks finished shooting 14-for-26 from 3, or 53.8%. The last time a team shot as many 3s against the Orange was in their 75-62 loss to then-No. 19 Virginia Tech on Jan. 28.

As for Syracuse, Burrows was the biggest threat. She led the Orange in points with 14 and made all four of the 3s she attempted. Other than Burrows, SU went 2-for-9 on 3s, as the Orange only attempted 13 triples — down from 15 in their season-opener Tuesday — and made 46.2% of their shots from distance.

Published on November 10, 2024 at 4:19 pm

Contact Nicholas: njalumka@syr.edu | @nalumkal