The Ladies Win an Ugly Game

I didn't get watch to this one or listen to it, but I follow the gametracker all night, and it seemed like the Orange's 67-60 win over South Florida was not pretty to watch.

S.U. consistently shot about 40% all game, but South Florida shot much worse at 30%, compound lots of offensive rebounds for the Bulls and that means lots of extra possessions for South Florida to miss more shots.

Syracuse was uncharacteristically bad on the boards, allowing 18 offensive rebounds. The rebounding margin ended up even, but that was because South Florida missed 51 shots. S.U. was bound to get a good number of defensive rebounds no matter how bad they were rebounding.

This team as a whole this real has been solid rebounding the ball, but in their two losses and this close game, they've really struggled on the boards. North Carolina exploited them on the glass in the second half and Pitt controlled the glass all game. Both resulted in losses, in this one, S.U. almost blew another lead, but held on at the end. Their 10 point lead at the half quickly shrank in the second half to just a couple points.

The 'Cuse hung on in the end behind the stellar play of Nicole Michael. Michael has struggled this year a little bit compared to her incredible freshman season. In this game, those struggles were behind her. She pulled a Fantasia Goodwin and cleaned the glass very well, grabbing 15 rebounds in the game and scoring 13 points.

Syracuse also got solid performances from Chandra Jones, 19 points and 3-4 from the land of three point shots, and from Erica Morrow who scored 15 and went 2-2 from behind the arc.

Fantasia Goodwin also contributed a double-double coming off the bench. She posted 10 points and 12 rebounds.

The Lady Orange move to 14-2 and 2-1 in conference play.

Their next game is Tuesday in the Dome at 7:00 against the number one ranked team in the country: UCONN. Come out and support the ladies, they deserve it.