Poor outings from Tiana Mangakahia and Miranda Drummond coupled with a third quarter to forget sunk Syracuse (14-4, 2-3 Atlantic Coast), 60-56, at the hands of North Carolina State (14-5, 3-3) on Sunday at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Drummond and Mangakahia, who together pace Syracuse in scoring, combined for 25 points — the former with nine, the latter with 16. Mangakahia, SU’s point guard and team leader in assists, only had five helpers and turned the ball over seven times. Drummond, a 6-foot-1 forward, only snatched four boards.

Despite that, head coach Quentin Hillsman was proud of his point guard battling through a rough outing and a lingering eye injury suffered last Sunday against Florida State.

“(Mangakahia) could’ve laid down in that game,” Hillsman said, “but she didn’t. She did everything she could to help us win. That was a really courageous game by her.”

Syracuse got some good looks but couldn’t get shots to fall, Hillsman said. Still, he acknowledged, his team needs to figure out how to win on the road when things aren’t going its way. Despite a balanced Wolfpack offense on the other end — all five starters for NCSU finished with at least eight points — the Orange led at halftime, 33-32. The biggest hindrance to Syracuse pulling away was NCSU scoring on putbacks.

“Rebounding is the game,” Hillsman said. “They got a lot of second chance points, and that’s big. We’ve got to hold them to one possession (each time down the floor).”

The Wolfpack finished with 15 second-chance points. Syracuse had zero.

Out of the halftime break, SU mustered seven points in the third quarter while committing four fouls, turning the ball over four times and shooting a meager 2-of-12 from the field (16.7 percent). N.C. State also bullied SU on the glass in the third frame, out-rebounding Syracuse 13 to seven. On the game, the Wolfpack grabbed 15 more boards than the Orange (46-31).

“We didn’t really do a very good job of getting the ball off the glass,” Hillsman said, “There was times we got bodies on them and didn’t finish plays.”

Gabrielle Cooper managed to chip in 11 points, but on an inefficient 3-of-10 shooting, including some 3s that missed badly. Still, Cooper’s production, mixed with the limited offense being generated from the Orange’s usual sources, kept SU in the game.

With 11 seconds left, Syracuse was down four with Mangakahia at the line. She sank the first attempt, but missed the second and off the miss, she committed her fifth foul.

Mangakahia sat out and watched the final nine seconds bleed off the clock as SU dipped below .500 in conference play.

“At the end of the day,” Hillsman said, “it’s a long season. We’ve got a lot of basketball left. It’s an ACC road game and sometimes things happen on the road.”

Published on January 14, 2018 at 6:01 pm

Contact Andrew: aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham