After a big win over Old Dominion on Tuesday, No. 19 Syracuse (9-4) lost the second game of the Florida Sunshine Classic by a sizable margin, 105-84, to Texas A&M (9-3) on Wednesday afternoon.

The 21-point deficit is the second-largest margin of defeat this year for the Orange. Syracuse lost by 24 points to then-No. 18 DePaul earlier in the year.

SU went up 2-0 after Brittney Sykes got an offensive rebound and put back an Alexis Peterson miss. But that was the only lead Syracuse would have all game.

For much of the second quarter, the Aggies held a double-digit lead. But a short run with under two minutes to go had the Orange going into the half down by eight points. In the first half, Peterson, Sykes and Gabby Cooper combined to score 42 of the Orange’s 45 points. Briana Day played just seven minutes.

“She had two fouls early that sent her to the bench,” head coach Quentin Hillsman said of Day. “We had two long segments that we couldn’t play our players cause they were in foul trouble.”

But things unraveled for Syracuse in the third quarter. A 22-10 run in the first 6:14 of the frame opened up 20-point cushion for the Aggies. The Orange never got closer than 16 points the rest of the way.

Texas A&M scored 105 points despite averaging just 70.3 coming in to the game. The Aggies top 3 scorers coming into the game — Danni Williams, Khaalia Hillsman and Anriel Howard — averaged 44.4 points coming into the game. On Wednesday, they combined for 69 points. Tack on Jasmine Lumpkin’s 19 points and four players combined to score more than SU did as a whole.

There was a stark difference at the free throw line. The Orange got called for a season-high 26 fouls and the Aggies shot 40 free throw attempts, by far the most an SU opponent has had this year. They made 34 of them. Syracuse went 11-of-15 from the line.

“When you’re playing a game where a team shoots 40 free throws and you shoot 15, that’s a hard game to win,” Hillsman said. “And they made 34 free throws, we made 11. That’s the game.”

The Orange begins Atlantic Coast Conference play next Thursday, Dec. 29th, at Louisville.

Published on December 21, 2016 at 6:56 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer