Unfortunately this was the worst game they've played so far this year. You're not going to beat the #3 ranked team in the country shooting 28% when they're hitting 56% of their shots. Our ladies were outscored 56-20 in the paint, and that was because of the 38 3-pt shots they launched, making 8 of them. That tells me the ball wasn't moving/being shared because there was too much settling for the outside shot. Yes I'd say Duke is the better team but I don't think they beat Syracuse by 33 points every time they play them.
To normaliswear's point, yes there is only enough top talent and those players go to Connecticut, Stanford, Tennessee, Baylor, and to Notre Dame, North Carolina, Maryland, and Duke in the ACC. I count 9 former mcdonald's/parade high school all-americans on Duke's roster. To my knowledge Syracuse has two in Brittney Sykes and Brianna Butler. While the talent as a whole in women's basketball continues to get better and the athleticism is far better than when I first started watching the women's game 30 years ago, you don't have the parity yet across the board as in the men's game.
Lastly our ladies won't win if Brianna and Brittney shoot a combined 9-for-26 as they did last night. The offense has to get them better looks at the basket and I'd like to see them both get to the rim more, draw fouls. They have the ability to do it. Brittney especially has to get untracked. As I said, this was their worst game this season to date. In the other losses at Iowa, at Arizona State, and at North Carolina State, all who were ranked in the top 25 when they beat Syracuse, our ladies held the lead late in those games but didn't finish in the closing minutes to win. Had we finished, the record would be 14-1 instead of 11-4. Still a lot of season left. I remain optimistic.