Terriers Outshoot Lady Eagles
12/27/2007 5:24:00 AM | Women's Basketball
RICHMOND, Va. ? Seniors Tiffany Brown and Shawnda Atwood combined for 20 points, Thursday night (Dec. 27) versus Boston University, but the Terriers outshot Georgia Southern en route to a 70-53 decision ? the first of two games at the Virginia Commonwealth University Christmas tournament at Siegel Center.
The Lady Eagles fall to 5-7 overall with the loss, stopping a two-game win-streak. The Terriers improve to 7-4 overall and better their all-time lead over GSU to 2-0.
Georgia Southern was paced by guards Tiffany Brown (Waxhaw, N.C.) and Shawnda Atwood (Pensacola, Fla.) with ten points, apiece. Atwood also pulled down a team-high five rebounds on the evening and shot 4-of-10 from the field.
A trio of Terriers scored in double-figures in Cheri Raffo (16), Aly Hinton (14) and Jesyka Burks-Wiley (10). Burks-Wiley led all rebounders with eight boards.
“[Boston University] came out and played hard,” said head coach Rusty Cram. “They didn't miss a beat. They shot the ball extremely well, they hit the boards hard. Their execution was flawless. We played the second half better. But we got behind 15 points in the first half and there's no excuse for that.”
In first half action, Brown and Atwood dropped a pair of buckets to help the Lady Eagles jump out to an early 4-3 lead with 18:46 on the clock. But the Lady Eagles struggled from the field for the remainder of the first half while BU pulled away to go into the locker room with a 36-21 lead at the break.
“We hit the first couple buckets,” said Cram. “Tiffany hit a couple of them right off the bat. And we were playing with them, back and forth there for the first minutes there. It's the fact that they started executing and doing the fundamental things, blocking out and getting the second-chance points that made the difference.”
The Lady Eagles shot 26.7 percent (8-of-30) from the field, compared to BU's 38.9 percent (14-of-36) field goal shooting in the first stanza. The Terriers led GSU in the rebounds category 26-18 in the first half.
Georgia Southern came out a different team in the second half, improving its field goal shooting to 45.2 percent (14-of-31). But BU's first half carried over into the second half, as the Terriers hit 46.9 percent (15-of-32) of their shots from the field and the Lady Eagles couldn't close the gap to fewer than 16 points for the remainder of the contest.
“It was an even game in the second half,” said Cram. “The difference was we were scoring, but we weren't stopping them from scoring. They were still getting good looks at the basket there. I felt like we did a great job keeping them off the free-throw line; they were only at the line eight times, which is good for us. But they shot the ball so well and they played a lot of zone and forced us to the outside. We weren't able to knock it down enough. They're execution was good, ours wasn't and we lost our focus.”
Boston University led the Lady Eagles in points in the paint, 28-24 and 2nd chance points 20-16. Georgia Southern's bench edged the Terriers 23-22.
BU led the rebounds category 42-36 and scored 14 points off of GSU's 16 turnovers, compared to Georgia Southern's 11 points off of BU's 12 miscues.
Atwood scored seven of her 10 points in the second half, which is her fourth consecutive game in double-figures.
“I thought Shawnda Atwood had a good ballgame tonight, my hat's off to her,” said Cram. “She played hard and I thought she did a pretty good job. But we showed our weakness in the post-game tonight and we were very vulnerable in there and they took it to us, because that's their strength, their post game. I thought there strengths certainly beat us in our weaknesses, which was a major difference in the game.”
Georgia Southern will look to bounce back as it continues
tournament action, Friday (Dec. 28), taking on Morgan State with tip-off at 5 p.m. Fans can follow the live stats via the VCU Web site.
