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Entering Syracuse’s matchup at Stanford Thursday, there was a clear mismatch favoring the Cardinal.

Stanford entered making 36% of its 3-pointers, the 22nd-highest clip in Division I, according to HerHoopStats. Meanwhile, SU allowed opponents to shoot 35.4% from beyond the arc, slotting in the bottom 20 nationally.

That discrepancy became strikingly clear as soon as the game started. Stanford (12-12, 4-9 Atlantic Coast) shot 10-for-22 (45.5%) from 3, leading to its 79-58 win over Syracuse (10-14, 4-9 Atlantic Coast) Thursday. The victory lifted the Cardinal above the Orange in the conference standings and left SU in 13th place, one game ahead of missing the ACC Tournament.

It was Syracuse’s furthest road trip of the season, a cross-country trek to the Bay Area. But previously, head coach Felisha Legette-Jack said defense travels well no matter where SU is playing.

“You can’t really count on offense,” Legette-Jack said on Jan. 31. “You can always count on defense. All you gotta do is zip it down, put it in and zip it up. It’s your heart. If you fly around with your heart out there and your dreams (in the) back of your mind, anybody can defend. That’s why I always talk about defense.”

Legette-Jack has harped on defense, noting her staff won’t “let anything slide” in practice, she said on Jan. 31. The head coach also took some of the blame for not belaboring the point earlier in the season. Legette-Jack admits she wants to see even more improvement.

The numbers bear out her point. Syracuse allows the second-most points per game in the ACC at 71.8. It allows opponents to shoot the fourth-highest field goal percentage in the conference, at 42.4%. And its 35.4% opponent 3-point field goal percentage is last in the conference.

Stanford missed its first three triples and got its first 10 points in the paint. But it got going from outside with four minutes left in the first quarter. Cardinal forward Chloe Clardy drove downhill, and Syracuse’s defense collapsed to prevent the easy lay-in. But Clardy kicked it out to Brooke Demetre on the left, and Demetre netted the 3. The 6-foot-3 senior is a deadly threat from deep, making 37.1% of her attempts.

Clardy performed the same drive and kick on the Cardinal’s next possession, finding Demetre again, this time in the left corner. Again, the guard made no mistake.

“We went player-to-player, because I thought if we had somebody in front of them, we’d be fine,” Legette-Jack said of defending the 3-point arc. “But what they got on us is the ball reversal and then the slip. When the slip came, we panicked, and it came off a 3-point shot as opposed to giving a layup.”

Legette-Jack added Stanford was looking to take the 3-point shot and would rather force it than make a layup. But she stressed her team played defense with desperation rather than playing composed. As a result, it gave Stanford “all the power.”

Stanford made three more 3s for a total of five in the first quarter, while SU shot 0-for-5 in the opening 10 minutes. The result was a 27-13 Cardinal advantage.

“Stanford shot the ball with confidence, and we didn’t today,” Legette-Jack said postgame. “We shot the ball with desperation… We shot like we had to catch up, and we weren’t that far behind.”

Though SU made its first three triples of the second quarter — two from Madeline Potts and one from Georgia Woolley — Stanford answered with two of its own during the quarter to create a 15-point halftime lead.

Immediately after Woolley sank her trey, the Orange were caught napping on defense. They tried to press Stanford’s ball handlers at the top of the arc but left Tess Heal, a 51% 3-point shooter, open in the right corner. The result was another conversion to make Stanford 6-for-9 from 3.

On her next triple with 5:11 left in the second, Heal was more closely defended by fellow Melbourne native Sophie Burrows. Still, she reeled it in to respond to a Potts make.

In the second half, it was more of the same. Right when SU converted a triple, as Woolley did with 6:23 left in the quarter, Heal found herself open at the top of the key and drained the shot to keep Stanford’s lead at 14.

Stanford head coach Kate Paye praised her team for dictating its offense “at pace” postgame. Quick ball movement late in the third quarter opened up Elena Bosgana in the right corner, where she stretched the Cardinal’s lead to 17.

SU’s Dominique Camp and Burrows double-teamed Bosgana on the right wing with under two minutes to play in the third quarter. Bosgana swung the ball to an unmarked Clardy in the corner, where she buried a triple.

Stanford’s 3s allowed it to jump ahead with an early lead and maintain that lead throughout, with Syracuse rarely making a dent in its advantage. And it seemed like any time the Orange did trim the deficit, the Cardinal answered with a 3.

“We reached and we lunged, as opposed to having ready feet,” Legette-Jack said of SU’s defense. “That’s half the battle on defense. It’s my pedigree, the defensive side of the ball. And we got to have ready feet. We’ll get them better. Yeah, we’ll get them better.”

Published on February 14, 2025 at 10:13 am

Contact Nicholas: njalumka@syr.edu | @nalumkal