Fourth Quarter Surge Not Enough As Syracuse Falls to Purdue 87-78

By Nick Luttrell | @nickluttie
CitrusTV Women’s Basketball Beat Reporter

WEST LAFAYETTE, I.N. – With 1:12 remaining in the third quarter in Wednesday night’s game between Syracuse and Purdue, the SU Head Coach, Felisha Legette Jack, received a technical foul. She wasn’t happy with the referees after Dyaisha Fair’s contested layup didn’t get a foul with it. It seemed like that was just what the inexperienced Orange team needed to spark them for a fourth quarter run.

SU opened up the final ten minutes of play on a 15-3 run to cut Purdue’s lead to single digits for the first time since midway through the second quarter. Dyaisha Fair was finally hitting her shots, Asia Strong was catching fire and Dariauna Lewis was defending the paint on defense. But for Syracuse (5-2, 0-0 Atlantic Coast) it was too little, too late as they fell 87-78 to the hands of Purdue (7-1, 0-0 Big Ten).

A poor second quarter performance was what put Syracuse in such a big hole heading into the fourth quarter and what ultimately resulted in its second loss in the past three games. After trailing by just five after the first ten minutes, the Orange were outscored 24-11 in the final ten minutes before halftime.

Purdue’s Lasha Petree took over at multiple points in the game including scoring nine points in her team’s 12-2 run on the ‘Cuse in the second quarter. Petree finished the night playing only 29 minutes and amazingly scored 31 points, just five short of her career high.

Besides struggling to slow down Petree, SU also had trouble working the ball inside to its bigs and scoring in the paint. The Orange were outscored 54 to 28 down low – the biggest deficit so far in the young season. To a coach like Felisha Legette Jack, who took pride in herself to dominate in the paint and now takes pride in her team to be that way, you have to imagine that she’s not too happy with that statistic.

Coming off a season high, Dyaisha Fair was oddly quiet most of the night. At one point in the third quarter she had 3 points on 1-11 shooting from the field. That left the keys to Teisha Hyman who played all 40 minutes and while having some wild shots, finished with a season-high 26 points on 11-23 shooting.

After SU’s second loss in the last ten days, the Orange will be on the road again for their next game in New Haven, Connecticut against a Yale team that is 4-4 to start the season. That game will tip off at noon on Sunday, December 4th.