Fueled By A Third Quarter Dominance, SU Beats LIU 85-63

By Nick Luttrell | @nickluttie

CitrusTV Women’s Basketball Beat Reporter

At the end of the first quarter of Thursday’s nights game between Syracuse and LIU, the Orange trailed 14-13. But, in the second half The ‘Cuse flipped the script, outscoring the Sharks 31-14 in the third quarter alone on their way to an 85-63 win over LIU.

After the game, SU Head Coach Felisha Legette-Jack talked about how it was her teams’ defensive effort that led to that big third quarter run.

When talking about what went wrong Jack said, “We were playing safe, we were playing soft in my opinion. But once we got up on ’em and changed the defense… that’s a coaches thing, I stayed too long in the zone, we really needed to change it faster, I own that. When we went to our player-to-player full court we actually really started turning them and they got excited and they got steals.”

Senior guard Dyaisha Fair also commented on the switch made in the second half.

“We decided to push up and press the ball and make them work and make them think and speed them up a little bit and we did that, that’s what it resulted in,” Fair said

Another guard, Cheyenne McEvans, made her first appearance in an Orange uniform on Thursday night. She said that her team needed to mentally get back into the game.

“We just had to realize we had to dig deep and that’s why we play basketball, why we want and lock in on defense and come together as a team so we can get this game and work to move forward,” the Buffalo transfer said. “We knew that we could turn it up and give a little more and we know that that’s our identity deep inside. So we kinda just had to throw out what we’re made of at them and that’s how we got that run.”

After tonight’s win, Syracuse advances to 4-0 on the season. The Orange have dominated each opponent so far this season – winning by an average margin of 25 points per game. One of SU’s toughest task in the non-conference season is up next – on the road at Penn State (3-0, 0-0 B1G).

CitrusTV’s Jesse Cook will be in University Park to cover that game. You can listen on 89.1 FM in Syracuse, watch on B1G+ or follow @JesseCookTV on twitter for live updates.