Emily Engstler turned her face down, shielding it with her hand as if to block out the game that was happening in front of her. To her left, Maeva Djaldi-Tabdi sat emotionless with her head resting on her right fist. Marie-Paule Foppossi, to Engstler’s right, slouched in her seat and stared ahead blankly.

Madison Guebert had just drained her sixth 3-pointer of the game after another defensive lapse left the senior open. On South Dakota State’s previous possession, Guebert drained a 3 to put the Jackrabbits ahead, 64-62. That triple gave them a lead they never lost.

In a game that determined who would advance to the Sweet 16, No. 3 seed Syracuse (25-9, 11-5 Atlantic Coast) was riddled with errors on both sides of the ball and ultimately upset by No. 6 seed South Dakota State (28-6, 15-1 Summit), 75-64. Numerous scoring runs couldn’t prevent the Orange from falling victim to unforced mishaps that prompted offensive streaks from SDSU. Syracuse head coach Quentin Hillsman preached to his team before and during the game not to help on drives by the Jackrabbits, but SU did so time-after-time and left shooters open on the perimeter often. Offensively, Syracuse’s top-ranked unit struggled due to untimely turnovers and poor decision-making, and couldn’t muster a comeback in the waning minutes.

“We were not playing that much as a team,” forward Digna Strautmane said. “We just kind of locked in our own space and forgot that we had to play together to win this game.”

Syracuse’s first costly mistake of the game defensively came just two possessions into the contest, when Miranda Drummond lost track of who she was guarding. The South Dakota State player converted a layup, prompting Hillsman to yell at her and stomp his feet from across the court on Syracuse’s bench.

The Jackrabbits nailed three triples in the opening period — the first two gave SDSU the lead, while the third stopped an Orange run. The last one, Guebert’s first 3 of the game, came after Syracuse had built its largest lead to that point. Kadiatou Sissoko picked off a pass and dished the ball to Gabrielle Cooper, who hit a shot beyond the arc to give SU a 23-17 lead and set the Carrier Dome ablaze. But 27 seconds later, a Syracuse defender helped on a Tylee Irwin drive and left Guebert open.

“Before the game, after the game, during the game, every point of the game (Hillsman) said ‘stop helping off people,’” Drummond said. “It’s just instinct, whenever the ball goes in the high post you look to see who’s there, and once we turn our heads they cut back door or they have an open shot. We weren’t focused and just didn’t keep our heads in it.”

Corey Henry | Staff Photographer

While the Orange did a better job limiting South Dakota State’s long balls in the second frame, they struggled with consistency on offense. After jumping out to its biggest lead of the game, Syracuse’s offensive flow disappeared. Engstler committed a turnover by trying to take on the SDSU’s defense herself and was slow to get up. Her injury meant SU had to play 4-on-5 defense on the ensuing play, which let Guebert to get open for another 3 and cut the Syracuse lead to six.

On the next possession, South Dakota State switched from its man-to-man defense to a 2-3 zone. It flustered the Orange. Djaldi-Tabdi was called for offensive three seconds in the paint and the Jackrabbits converted on the turnover with a give-and-go baseline reverse layup on the other end. SU missed a 3-pointer that turned into two more points for South Dakota State, which then forced Mangakahia into committing Syracuse’s third turnover in its last four possessions.

“We just hung in there,” SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston said. “Our defense was a lot better…We didn’t let them just keep rolling along.”

In the third quarter, the Orange’s mistakes allowed South Dakota State to put together the biggest run of the game. Syracuse’s success against the Jackrabbits’ shooting in the second quarter came to a halt, and for the first time all game, SU began to make mistakes on both sides of the ball. It opened the period by extending its lead to 45-40 but ended it on the wrong side of a momentum shift.

A short baseline jumper by Myah Selland was followed by another 3 by Guebert, whose defender left her to double down on Selland in the post. On the other side of the court, Djaldi-Tabdi turned the ball over. The Orange forced a stop on defense but failed to box out Selland, who grabbed the offensive rebound and put the ball back up and in to give South Dakota State the lead.

A minute later, after Mangakahia committed her fourth turnover of the game, Guebert rained down another 3-pointer. That was followed with a triple by Sydney Palmer, who capped off the 13-0 run, as SDSU rarely left an opportunity beyond the arc go to waste.

“Once we saw that they were collapsing a little bit, we kept going to that,” Guebert said. “With their zone, they help and pack it in sometimes. We knew that if we kept moving the ball and trying to cut and find those openings, that there were gonna be openings from 3.”

Syracuse extended its lead to three with 4:45 left in the game. It appeared as if the home team had wrangled back the momentum in the game and was poised to advance to its second-ever Sweet 16. But by that time, South Dakota State was more than prepared to take the lead back, for good. The Orange never learned. Both of Guebert’s 3s in the last four minutes came after she was given enough space by the SU defense to get her shot off. 

Guebert’s shots almost always found the bottom of the net, propelling SDSU to a lead it retained until the final buzzer. They exposed the holes in Syracuse’s game plan — the same one that led it to program bests throughout the season.

“(Not helping on defense) was our main thing,” Strautmane said. “We literally didn’t do the one thing that we actually had to do. We can only blame ourselves.”

Published on March 26, 2019 at 12:07 am

Contact Eric: erblack@syr.edu | @esblack34