GREENSBORO, N.C. — Virginia Tech’s Aisha Sheppard pushed the ball up the floor with about two minutes left in Thursday’s game against Syracuse. The Hokies led by 10. The shot clock was still higher than 20 seconds. Sheppard pulled up from the top of the key anyway.

“If I was mic’d up, I was like ‘no, no, no, no,’” Virginia Tech head coach Kenny Brooks said he was thinking.

Bang.

“Great shot, baby,” Brooks said he thought after the make.

Sheppard’s shot was the dagger for Virginia Tech (18-12, 6-10 Atlantic Coast) in its 85-70 win over Syracuse (22-8, 10-6) in the second round of the ACC tournament. She finished with 19 points to complement a game-high 28 from Taylor Emery. The backcourt players took the Hokies from down nine points to start the fourth quarter to up eight after 17-straight points to open the frame. In the end, it was the duo’s daggers that closed the game out in the Greensboro Coliseum.

“I can’t say enough about them,” SU head coach Quentin Hillsman said. “They just made plays.”

Emery got her buckets throughout the contest. SU came out in a man-to-man defense on most possessions to shut down the Hokies 5-out offensive sets, Hillsman said, but that meant Emery had opportunities to get all the way to the basket, like she did on her first bucket. She drove left by Miranda Drummond and got in for a left-handed layup off the glass. Later in the first, she stepped back in Raven Fox’s face and nailed a jumper. And she crossed right to left and hit a runner off the glass for her ninth and 10th points before the first quarter buzzer sounded.

“It’s not really Syracuse, it’s really my team, they really look for me,” Emery said. “… Syracuse does a pretty good job of staying on me and trying to faceguard me and stuff like that. My team really looks for me and puts me in a position that opens me up.”

Syracuse seemed to adjust in the second quarter. Neither of the Hokies’ top-two scorers in the game, Emery or Sheppard, scored in the second. Emery opened the third quarter with a 3, though, and the Hokies had life.

Sheppard had moved into VT’s starting lineup in its last regular season game, at Miami, because Kendyl Brooks has been battling a nagging injury, Kenny Brooks said. The freshman entered the fourth quarter with eight points. But she embraced the postseason stage in the final frame.

Open on the left wing and down seven, Sheppard knocked down a 3. After Sheppard missed a deep ball on the next trip, Emery shot from the top of the key and grazed the front rim as the shot fell through for another 3. One-point game. A few possessions passed with SU still up one, but then Emery took the ball to the rim and finished with her left hand. After Syracuse missed a shot at the other end, Brooks called a timeout.

The Hokies fans behind their bench rose as one. Sheppard waved her arms to urge the crowd to be louder. It was the loudest the arena had been all game. The supporters in burgundy responded to Sheppard and the volume increased even more. Sheppard’s play would keep the volume high less than a minute of game time later when she hit another 3. The Hokies wouldn’t trail again.

“For us, it was just about not getting matched up properly,” Hillsman said. “Getting cross-matched because we couldn’t make shots to get our pressure set up.”

Emery expanded the lead to 10 with 3:54 left. SU’s perimeter players kept her in front, away from the basket, for much of the game. SU’s Tiana Mangakahia said that Emery “muscles up,” though, and so she didn’t seem to mind when she drove and was cut off.

With the Hokies up eight and her lane cut off, she just rose up from the foul line and casually knocked down a jumper. It gave Emery 26 for the game, a total that would be buoyed by two late free throws. Her work was basically done.

“They were missing their shots early in the game,” SU’s Gabrielle Cooper said. “In the second half, they got the same shots. They were just making it.”

Sheppard had one more big shot to hit. Drummond had just knocked down two free throws for Syracuse. With just over two minutes left, the deficit was 10. SU likes to press and make 3s. That deficit was manageable.

The Hokies’ freshman, who had just broken into the starting 5 in their last game, led Virginia Tech in minutes (37) on Thursday. She led the Hokies with four assists. And she tied with Emery for the fourth quarter-high with 11 points.

Brooks said after the game that he didn’t remember Sheppard playing point guard at all this season. Maybe that’s why she didn’t pull the ball out, run the clock and sit on the 10-point lead. Once her shot went in, it didn’t matter why. All that mattered was the make and that the Hokies would live to play another day.

“Sometimes her success is because she doesn’t know any better,” Brooks said. “She doesn’t know she’s not supposed to take that shot. It was a dagger.”

Published on March 1, 2018 at 6:17 pm

Contact Billy: wmheyen@syr.edu | @Wheyen3