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With two minutes remaining in overtime, Tiana Mangakahia was stuffed by two defenders as she rounded the left side of the arc, looking for Emily Engstler. She lost the ball, and Kendall Spray collected the turnover, drove down the court and splashed a 3-pointer — her seventh of the afternoon that stretched the Tigers lead to six points.

Moments later, Mangakahia turned it over again after a Clemson layup and then fouled out. Mangakahia finished with seven turnovers and 10 assists. 

Against Clemson, No. 23 Syracuse trailed by 25 at half, the team’s biggest halftime deficit since March 2017 against No. 1 UConn. They mustered up a comeback before collapsing in overtime.

Just three days earlier, Syracuse proved it was capable of competing with No. 1 Louisville, despite a poor shooting performance that head coach Quentin Hillsman cited postgame as reason for SU’s demise. Sunday against Clemson, Syracuse (7-3, 4-3 Atlantic Coast) mounted an impressive comeback to force overtime, but came up short in overtime against a Tigers (9-5, 4-5) team that sits ninth in the ACC standings and hadn’t won a game before Sunday in 2021.

Here are three takeaways from Syracuse’s 86-77 overtime loss to Clemson: 

Syracuse mounts comeback after disjointed start

After a three-week COVID-19 induced hiatus, Sunday’s game against Clemson marked the Orange’s fourth game in the last week. Hillsman said playing so many games immediately after returning from the extended pause was “probably a good thing for our players.”

“They’d rather be playing games, and honestly, this is what you want,” Hillsman said. “You want to get back in and start to compete again.”

Sunday, though, perhaps it was Syracuse’s fatigue that began to show early on. On the first possession of the game, Mangakahia held the ball for too long and got stuck as she tried to connect with Kiara Lewis. Mangakahia missed an easy layup off the glass moments later, and Syracuse didn’t look like the same team that had kept pace with No. 1 Louisville just days earlier. 

But in the third quarter, Syracuse closed Clemson’s lead to less than 12. Lewis started making shots that Syracuse was missing earlier, including a spin-move layup in the fourth quarter and then moments later to make it a one-point game. She finished with 25 points. The Orange looked confident in the paint during the second half, but then collapsed once again in overtime.

Emily Engstler is on fire

Engstler is yet to start a game for Hillsman’s team, but the junior guard played 39 minutes in Sunday’s matchup. She led the team in rebounds per game with 10.3 ahead of Sunday’s game, too — more than 6-foot-7 freshman Kamilla Cardoso’s 9.4. 

Sunday, with less than 30 seconds remaining, Engstler pulled up at the free throw line and swished a jumper that tied the game at 70. Then she got the crucial steal that forced overtime and halted the Tigers’ final possession in regulation, yanking the ball from Amari Robinson’s hands in the paint and securing it. 

Engstler put pressure on Weronika Hipp with seven minutes in the fourth quarter, charging out toward the arc and getting her left arm in the air to force an air ball as the shot clock was running out. Engstler showed her strength in the paint, turning and firing shots off the glass and through the net that Syracuse’s bigs couldn’t score on. Tack on another four blocks, and this was a complete game for Engstler. 

Engstler finished with 17 points on 8-of-11 from the field. She was one rebound away from her fourth consecutive game with a double-double, and was the only Syracuse player to score in overtime.

Syracuse bigs largely ineffective

It took Syracuse’s leading scorer, Cardoso, a minute into the third quarter to score her first points — she was averaging 14.7 points per game before Sunday’s contest. Cardoso was largely ineffective, particularly in the first half, finishing with 12 points. Cardoso lost a rebound to Hannah Hank, who’s five inches shorter than her, because of poor positioning and that led to second-chance points for the Tigers in the first quarter.

Cardoso struggled to rebound on the offensive boards, too. The Orange lost the offensive rebounding battle, 24-15, and were outrebounded 54-39 in total. Cardoso missed routine layups and shots in the paint, and proved unable to collect the rebounds to her shots in the first half. 

Syracuse has the best shot-blocking rate in the ACC, but besides blocking, Cardoso’s defense — and Syracuse’s — was uneven and often ineffective. Cardoso made way for Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi frequently in the first half, but the redshirt junior didn’t have more success. When Syracuse cut the Tigers’ lead to 10 with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter, Djaldi-Tabdi fouled Robinson on a crucial layup that killed the Orange’s offensive run. 

Published on January 24, 2021 at 2:46 pm

Contact Roshan: rferna04@syr.edu | @Roshan_f16