On Saturday, Brittney Sykes and Alexis Peterson pulled Gabby Cooper aside for a private conversation. The nation’s leading scoring backcourt told Cooper she’d have to step up Sunday for Syracuse to upset No. 7 Notre Dame. They also told her that being only a freshman doesn’t bar her from holding herself accountable.

“We’re gonna score our 20 (points), or however many we score,” Sykes said of herself and Peterson, “but we told her that she can’t have less than 15.”

Cooper would need to do that for the Orange to win Sunday’s game, said Sykes, who wanted the freshman to not get beat on defense and rebound.

Even though the No. 7 Fighting Irish (25-3, 13-1 Atlantic Coast) edged past Syracuse (18-9, 9-5), 85-80, Sunday evening in the Carrier Dome, Cooper shot 6-of-10 from 3-point range for 18 points — one shy of her career high. It was the Orange’s first home loss of the season and came in front of a program-record crowd of 11,021.

The way Cooper started and ended Sunday’s game was eerily similar. Just over two minutes into the first quarter, with SU holding an 8-2 advantage, Cooper spotted up from nearly four feet beyond the arc and drilled her first 3-pointer of the game to give SU a nine-point lead.

The freshman guard held three fingers in the air, sprinting back beyond the ‘S’ in the middle of the court as the crowd shot to its feet and UND head coach Muffet McGraw called a timeout to calm the run. Cooper threw both hands to her side as she jogged toward the SU bench, and Sykes came up from behind, swallowing the guard into her outstretched arms.

“She’s amazing,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “That’s why she’s here, to give our floor space and make shots on the perimeter, and she did an excellent job today.”

To slow down Sykes and Peterson, McGraw said she threw triangle-and-two defenses alongside her typical man-to-man style during different stretches of Sunday’s game. Then Cooper’s presence beyond the arc became crucial for the Orange. When Sykes or Peterson would drive into coverage, the freshman guard stayed put downtown, shooting only one contested shot all game thanks to her spacing on the floor.

Cooper’s single contested shot came with only 36 seconds left in the game, via yet another Peterson assist on a drive. As a UND defender closed out, Cooper pulled up without hesitation, nailing her sixth 3-pointer of the game with a hand in her face. Peterson had 14 assists Sunday, and five of them went to Cooper. The bucket brought the Orange within four and reinvigorated a Dome crowd that had been silent for much of the quarter.

“She hit a huge shot, the one to bring us within four at the end,” Sykes said.

Though the SU comeback would fail to come to fruition — a Peterson 3-pointer falling short as time expired — Hillsman was both complimentary of his freshman shooting guard and the team’s play. He said it was a strong showing all around for three of the day’s four quarters.

Cooper’s electric clip from beyond the arc contributed directly to the Orange’s 46.2 percent 3-point mark. And by the time the final horn sounded, Cooper had done everything that Peterson and Sykes had told her to do the day before. Cooper finished with a 17.0 efficiency rating and averaged a team-best .5 points per minute.

“She was tremendous and we’re proud of her,” Sykes said. “We need her to play like that for the rest of the season.”

Published on February 19, 2017 at 9:36 pm

Contact Matt: mjfel100@syr.edu