Syracuse women defeat Washington, 80-59, to advance to national title game

Syracuse just followed the normal plan Sunday night and the Orange are one win from a national championship.

With the Orange’s strong three-point shooting barrage challenging Washington’s defense and full-court pressure forcing miscue after miscue, the Huskies finally cracked.

Alexis Patterson scored 18 points, and Brittney Sykes added 17 to help the Orange roll past the surprising Huskies, 80-59, and right into their first women’s national title game.

“When you get those type of steals and come out in the second half and you become hungrier and start to turn them over and start to get the ball and you want them more and you understand what’s at stake is you can go home, and that puts fear in you,” Sykes said. “You want to go out and you want to give your all for 40 minutes because you don’t want those to be the last 40 minutes.”

Not a chance now.

The next goal is to end Connecticut’s historic run on Tuesday night. The three-time defending champs rolled to their 74th consecutive win with a 29-point blowout over Pac-12 champion Oregon State, the largest margin ever in the national semifinals. One more would give Connecticut a record fourth straight title and another perfect season.

With Syracuse’s blowout, it marked the first time since 1995 — and only the third time in Final Four history — that each of the two games were decided by 20 or more points.

How did Syracuse (30-7) get here?

“They brought us out of our zone early by making [three-point] shots, ran us out of our zone, which is our bread-and-butter,” Washington Coach Mike Neighbors said. “They were hot down the stretch. Not doing anything they haven’t been doing for the last month.”

The outmanned Huskies (26-11) couldn’t keep up.

Talia Walton led Washington with 29 points and made her first eight three-pointers to break the single-game record at a Final Four. The previous mark of six was set by Katy Steding in the 1990 title game and matched in 2013 by Antonita Slaughter.

Third-team All-American Kelsey Plum, the nation’s No. 3 scorer, had a rough night. She scored 17 points, was five for 18 from the field and wound up with six turnovers in 40 minutes.

“I felt like the thing that they did best was they really, really made it hard on her for 40 minutes,” Neighbors said. “I wasn’t much help to her tonight, because we kept putting it in her hands and I knew she was tired and I knew she had been stressed like she hadn’t been stressed all year. So a lot of the shooting was because I couldn’t give her a break.”

In their first meeting this season, Syracuse took a 21-point lead before Washington rallied to within one. The Orange held on for a 66-62 victory in November.

This time, Syracuse never let it get close.

When Washington cut the halftime deficit to 43-31, Peterson hit a three to start a 9-4 spurt that made it 52-35. When the Huskies got within 11, Syracuse used a 15-2 run to make it 67-43. And when Washington closed to 72-59 midway through the fourth quarter, Sykes and Brianna Butler made back-to-back threes to seal it.

Butler finished with four three-pointers to set the NCAA’s single-season record with 128. Ohio State’s Kelsey Mitchell made 127 last season.

“I actually didn’t know I was that close to beating it,” Butler said. “I was just focused on advancing and getting a chance to play for a championship.”

And by sticking to the plan, they will get that chance Tuesday night.

“Our players did what we asked them to do,” Syracuse Coach Quentin Hillsman said. “They competed at a high level. They pushed the pace, pushed the tempo. And that’s the difference in the game. We just wanted to get up and down and play fast.”