Each time Syracuse seemed to gain a little bit of momentum in the second half, the game took a turn for the worse.

With the score knotted at 63 with 3:54 remaining, SU guard Elashier Hall grabbed a defensive rebound and raced up court, but she was called for a travel. She slammed the ball to the court in frustration and was assessed a technical foul.

And just like that, the Orange — which had fought back from a 12-point first-half deficit to lead for most of the second half — saw the defining moment of the game swing in the Arizona’s favor.

‘That is a momentum changer,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘When you talk about having a game tied and the other team gets two shots and the ball over a play that was not a malicious play and not a disrespectful act towards the referee.’

Syracuse (6-1) struggled to find its rhythm in Friday’s contest, and lost its first game of the season to the Wildcats (6-1) 80-74 at the Hukilau Invitational in Laie, Hawaii, Friday. In a long, disjointed contest that featured two power outages in the second half, the Orange shot a dismal 31 percent for the game.

After cruising through its first six games, Syracuse never settled in on Friday.

‘There wasn’t a great flow to the game to the game,’ Hillsman said. ‘We also had two stoppages of plays because of power outages. We’re playing the game with no shot clocks, the shot clocks were broken, so it was a tough game.’

The Wildcats’ zone collapsed on SU center Kayla Alexander throughout, effectively taking her out of the game. Alexander scored a season-low 13 points on 6-of-16 shooting.

Hillsman said Syracuse struggled to get the ball to the high post, an integral part of the team’s offensive system. With its inside game neutralized, the Orange resorted to shooting from the perimeter, but went 9-of-38 shots from beyond the arc.

‘We just have to do a better job of executing the offense,’ Hillsman said. ‘I thought we took way too many 3s, we took 38 3s, and for us that’s not our game. We got to throw the ball inside and play at the rim.’

Despite the poor shooting performance, SU was able to hang around because of its effort on the glass. The Orange gathered 56 total rebounds, including 31 offensive boards. But down the stretch, the inefficiency on offense was too much to overcome.

Following Hall’s technical foul the Wildcats scored eight unanswered points to seal the loss for the Orange.

‘We did a good job and we never felt like we were out of the game,’ Hillsman said. ‘ … It’s just one of those things where we didn’t make enough shots and those nights are going to happen.’

adtredin@syr.edu

Published on December 2, 2011 at 12:00 pm