Cold Shooting Dooms WVU
January 07, 2009 10:28 PM | General
January 7, 2009
| West Virginia 55, Cincinnati 61 WVU Coliseum Morgantown, W.Va. |
||||||||||||||
Box Score
 Photo Gallery
|
||||||||||||||
| Summary | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
| Stat Comparison | ||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||
| FG Made-Att | 20-50 | 22-71 | ||||||||||||
| FG Percentage | 40.0% | 31.0% | ||||||||||||
| 3P Made-Att | 5-13 | 6-30 | ||||||||||||
| 3P Percentage | 38.5% | 20.0% | ||||||||||||
| FT Made-Att | 16-20 | 5-7 | ||||||||||||
| FT Percentage | 80.0% | 71.4% | ||||||||||||
| Rebounds | 41 | 41 | ||||||||||||
| Turnovers | 16 | 12 | ||||||||||||
| Top WVU Players | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A poor shooting night from the 3-point line hurt the West Virginia University women’s basketball team as it fell to the Cincinnati Bearcats, 61-55, on Wednesday evening at the WVU Coliseum.
WVU was just 6-of-30 from outside the arc and shot 31 percent from the field throughout the contest. The Mountaineers (10-4, 0-2 Big East) experienced several scoring slumps in the second half while the Bearcats (12-3, 2-0 Big East) rebounded from a poor first half to outscore WVU 35-24 in the latter period.
“It looked like we were in second gear tonight. Why? I don’t know,” Coach Mike Carey said. “We played so hard against Pitt, had an opportunity to play home against a team, Cincinnati, who we can beat, and we don’t play hard.”
Sophomore Liz Repella led the Mountaineers with 19 points, going 8-of-23 from the floor. Senior Takisha Granberry and sophomore Sarah Miles each followed with 14 points, with the bulk of their scoring coming in the first half.
With 10:12 left in the game, Cincinnati’s Kahla Roudebush sank a free throw to make it 40-40. The Mountaineers then fell victim to a 16-5 run by Cincinnati that extended the Bearcat lead to 56-45 with 1:51 left on a Roudebush layup.
Roudebush led all scorers with 24 points on 7-of-16 shooting, while Parkersburg native Jill Stephens followed with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
After Roudebush’s basket put the game at double figures with little time left, the Mountaineers fought back to give a last-gasp effort. Granberry knocked down a 3-pointer and a jumper within a 30 second span to leave the Mountaineers trailing 56-50 with 54 seconds left.
“In the second half we took a five-point lead again, after they cut it, and I thought that was the key,” Carey said. “We then came down and turned it over two times, shot three air balls and then go down on the other end and let them have some easy buckets. It’s very disappointing.”
A layup by Miles with 22 seconds left cut the deficit to 58-53, but the Bearcats made critical free throws down the stretch as they did all game to give WVU its second straight conference loss in as many games.
The Bearcats took nearly three times as many free throws as WVU, making 16 of 20 while the Mountaineers sank 5 of 7 attempts. Cincinnati’s aggressive style of attacking the basket and forcing the ball in the post contrasted with WVU’s perimeter-oriented offense.
The Mountaineers, however, matched Cincinnati with 28 points in the paint. They also contributed with 12 second-chance points, and tied the Bearcats by grabbing 41 boards in the contest.
“You can’t shoot 6 of 30 from the three, you can’t go to the foul line seven times and have them go 20 times,” Carey added. “It’s not the officials fault, it’s out fault; we settled for jump shots instead of attacking them.”
Repella was the game’s top rebounder, pulling down 13 boards while Granberry and Cynthia Fullard each tallied six.
WVU led 31-26 at the end of the first half, as it came out shooting early and often. The Mountaineers raced out to a 17-9 lead after the first seven minutes, aided by 3-pointers from the standout trio of Granberry, Repella and Miles.
Miles led WVU with 12 points on five-of-six shooting at the half, while making two highlight reel plays. The San Antonio, Texas, resident stole a pass through mid-air and came down in transition to hit a pretty off-balanced jumper from the left elbow to extend WVU’s lead to 23-19.
The second play came with 2:37 left in the first half when Granberry took the ball on a fast break opportunity and dished a pass to Ashley Powell on the right side, who then made a touch pass to Miles for the left-handed layup to give WVU a 31-21 lead.
Powell led the Mountaineers with four assists, giving her 470 for her career and leaving her only 14 dishes shy of fourth-place on the all-time list.
The Mountaineers return to action with a home contest against top-ranked Connecticut on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 7 p.m. The event will be televised by WVPBS and is deemed “Dairy Mart Dollar Day,” where fans can visit any Morgantown area Dairy Mart to pick up a coupon good for one dollar admission to the game.
