Late in the third quarter, Louisville slowly chewed away at Syracuse’s lead, something the Orange had for all but 19 seconds of the game. SU’s grip on the match was the weakest it had been all afternoon, and a potential top-10, resume-boosting win was slipping away.

Then, Kiara Lewis took control. With less than three minutes remaining in the third quarter, Lewis bulldozed into the paint and somehow got a contested finger roll to swirl into the rim. She then swished a desperation fadeaway 3 as the shot clock expired. On SU’s next possession, Lewis again found a sliver of space in the paint and floated one in off the glass. SU’s four-point lead grew back to nine, and SU’s upset bid remained alive.

“What I said in the huddle to our staff going into the fourth quarter was, ‘We lost one point in that quarter,’” Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “It was so important just trying to keep some distance. It was the difference in closing the game down.”

Lewis’ game-high 24 points gave Syracuse (12-11, 6-6 Atlantic Coast) the cushion it needed to finish No. 5 Louisville (21-3, 10-2), 59-51, on Sunday afternoon at the Carrier Dome. It was the Cardinals’ second loss in as many games following a 13-game win streak. The Orange earned their second top-10 win this season, keeping their postseason aspirations afloat.

During the Cardinals’ 13-game win streak, their average margin of victory was 17.7 points. The fourth victory of that run came against the Orange on Dec. 29, the conference opener for both teams. Then-No. 7 Louisville squeaked by Syracuse, 62-58 after SU led with less than two minutes left.

In that game, Syracuse held Dana Evans, the Cardinals’ point guard and leading scorer to nine points on 3-for-16 shooting, her only single-digit performance all season. On Sunday, Evans again did not look like herself — clanking shots off the rim, attempting risky passes and failing to stay with Lewis. The junior finished with 13 points on 4-for-17 shooting along with five turnovers.

It was not just Evans, though. Early on, the visitors misfired several passes to put the ball back in SU’s hands, allowed wide-open 3s and gave up offensive rebounds. By the first media timeout, the Cardinals had already committed five turnovers, their total from the entirety of their last game against the Orange.

“We were just throwing the ball out of bounds,” Louisville head coach Jeff Walz said. “There wasn’t anybody close. I had no idea what we were doing.”

While five different Syracuse players scored in the first quarter to give it a three-point lead, Louisville primarily attacked in transition through Jazmine Jones. She dropped 24 points on 8-for-12 shooting last time out against SU and again looked the Cardinals’ top scoring threat. The senior beat the full-court press for an easy score three times in the opening 10 minutes.

In the second quarter, the Cardinals committed six turnovers and allowed six offensive rebounds which the Orange turned around for 14 points. Louisville’s man-to-man defense scrambled to keep up with Lewis and Emily Engstler, who sunk open 3s to extend SU’s lead to 10 by halftime, its largest of the game.

“We thought that, for the last couple of weeks, we’ve been playing good defense,” Hillsman said. “Now, we’re starting to score some points. I think the defense was good on both ends of the floor. We just got matched up and tried to keep them in front of us. We attacked the paint, we got to the foul line, I thought that was huge.”

Less than a minute and a half before halftime, Louisville’s Yacine Diop drove into the lane and kicked it behind the arc, but Lewis was in the way. Lewis didn’t rush up the court, instead surveying her options before finding Engstler on the perimeter. In space, the sophomore neglected to take the 3 and dished to Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi, whose inside position gave her a simple layup. Moments later on the other end, Djaldi-Tabdi drew a charge — the Cardinals’ 13th turnover of the first half, one fewer than their season average.

When Evans drilled a corner 3 on the first possession of the second half to cut SU’s lead to seven, it seemed unlikely Syracuse would be able to resist one of the nation’s best teams for another half. The Orange blew leads against ranked teams in West Virginia and Michigan earlier this year. The sides traded buckets over the next few minutes before Lewis’ seven-point run gave SU the insurance it needed.

“I know we tend to struggle coming out of halftime,” Lewis said. “We got a lead, we let teams come back in the game but we just had to stay poised and that’s what we did. Run our sets and control them, we gained momentum from that.”

From there, Syracuse looked comfortable and refused to waver. The Orange played conservatively in the fourth quarter, taking just three 3-pointers in the final frame while working the ball inside and getting to the free-throw line. Gabrielle Cooper’s long ball from the corner with four minutes left, bringing SU’s lead to 12, secured its best win of the season.

As each game passes, the Orange’s NCAA tournament fate remains unclear. On Sunday, SU once again showed it is capable of beating one of the nation’s top teams, this time in dominant fashion. But Hillsman and Syracuse’s players know this marquee win means nothing if it isn’t followed by more of the same, something SU has failed to do this season.

With six games remaining until the ACC tournament, Syracuse has much more to prove.

“You can’t go out and lose games on the back of this now,” Hillsman said. “You can’t undo all your good work. Obviously, you beat a top-5 team and it’s important, but now you can’t start to drop games. You have to continue to build off this win.”

Published on February 9, 2020 at 4:09 pm

Contact David: ddschnei@syr.edu