Dyaisha Fair’s Fourth Quarter Heroics Send Syracuse to Second Round of NCAA Tournament

By Andrew Della Piana | @dellie_5

On Thursday before the NCAA Tournament, grad student Dyaisha Fair texted head coach Felisha Legette-Jack, “Coach, may I have this last dance?” FLJ responded with Of course, D.” Well, the Orange are still dancing after Fair poured in 13 points in the 4th quarter to propel 6th seeded Syracuse to a 74-69 victory over 11th seeded Arizona. With the game on the line down stretch, Fair said she knew it was her time. 

“We’ve been there before and when you have experience you know what it takes to win and you know what it takes to you know have success so I think you know the scorer that I am and the confidence that I have and the confidence that my teammates and coach and staff you know instilling me all the all throughout the year is just you know keep going it’s just keep going and you know trust your work.” 

“We know when she’s cooking, give her the ball, we’ll rebound, we’ll get her open if we need to but once Dyaisha gets going who could stop her.”

“We had to discern what was the right opportunity for her to be in attack mode and so we just let’s make that pass, let’s make that pass then once she started feeling good about I see what they’re doing right now that high IQ that she has all right we let’s go call some plays for her now and that’s what we ended up doing so it’s pretty special young lady.”

Syracuse collects its first tournament victory since 2021. The Orange advance to the second round to face 3rd seeded UConn on Monday night at 6:00. SU and Connecticut squared off in a close door scrimmage before the season. 

aedellap@syr.edu | @dellie_5