After another game in which a poor half of basketball condemned Syracuse against one of the best teams in the country, Carmen Tyson-Thomas rallied her teammates to discuss what just happened.

Each player agreed.

The Orange players beat themselves in the first half. And after stumbling out of the gate, the bad beginning negated the fact that SU hung with the nation’s No. 2 team the rest of the way.

‘As a team we need to put both halves together, we have to play as a whole, as a unit, and we’ve got to do what makes us,’ Tyson-Thomas said. ‘We have to rebound the ball, we need to get it high-low, and we know we have to do those things to put two halves together.’

After a lousy first half in which Syracuse (15-10, 4-7 Big East) shot just 18.8 percent from the field, the Orange played well against the No. 2 Fighting Irish (24-1, 11-0 Big East) for the entire second half, but it wasn’t enough. SU had already dug a 19-point hole largely due to its shooting woes that it couldn’t climb out of and fell 74-55 to Notre Dame in front of 998 in the Carrier Dome Tuesday.

In the first half, the Irish neutralized SU’s frontcourt attack led by Kayla Alexander and Iasia Hemingway. Hemingway, SU’s leading scorer, was determined to attack the rim in the first half but missed on numerous close looks.

Hemingway went 0-of-8 from the field in the opening half, including four missed layups. The Orange opened the game shooting just 2-of-14, allowing the Irish to take a 15-6 lead eight minutes into the game.

‘I give a lot of credit to Notre Dame,’ Hemingway said. ‘They made sure they kept forcing me and sagging on me going to the rim, digging on me, so they did a great job making sure I didn’t get to the basket, and if I did they were always there.’

And even though the Orange contained the Notre Dame’s offense in the first half, Syracuse didn’t have a chance as its offense scuffled.

SU’s final offensive set of the first half captured its struggles. After Notre Dame forward Natalie Achonwa hit a layup, the Orange pushed the ball quickly upcourt.

La’Shay Taft had a wide-open 3-point attempt from the top of the key sail to the right and hit the bottom half of the backboard. Hemingway collected the rebound and missed a layup from right underneath the rim.

And Notre Dame went into halftime leading 38-19.

‘I thought that was the difference in the game,’ SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. ‘We shot 18 percent in the first half and we didn’t make shots, and in the second half, we came out 41 percent and played an even half, so that’s the game.’

SU limited the Big East’s best 3-point shooter, Natalie Novosel, to just 2-of-9 shooting from the field in the half. And the Orange held Skylar Diggins scoreless.

But the Irish stretched Syracuse thin with quick ball movement opening the paint up for ND’s frontcourt players. The Orange was outrebounded 33-18 in the first half and allowed the Irish to score 26 points in the paint in the opening half to give SU headaches.

As Syracuse closed in on the shooters on the perimeter, Devereaux Peters and Achonwa grabbed easy offensive rebounds as SU players floated out of the paint, leaving a hole underneath. Peters and Achonwa combined to grab nine offensive rebounds and 19 points in the half.

‘They’re really good at gliding through their offensive sets, getting cuts, backdoors,’ Alexander said, ‘so for us it was mostly about staying in our positions and trying to stay between the ball and the basket and not let them get too many open shots.’

SU opened up the second half on an 11-3 run to cut Notre Dame’s lead to 11, but it could not take advantage. Turnovers cost the Orange and allowed the Irish to increase its lead back 15, and Notre Dame held off Syracuse.

A strong-willed performance helped the Orange keep pace with the Irish in the second half, as each scored 36 points. But the poor first half doomed Syracuse.

‘Just looking at this game alone, in the first half we had so many easy opportunities to get some easy layups that we just missed,’ Alexander said. ‘And then in the second half we were getting stops, and we weren’t able to turn those into points on the offensive end.’

adtredin@syr.edu

Published on February 7, 2012 at 12:00 pm