Women’s Basketball Falls 70-31 at UT Arlington

Saturday, January 2

Arlington, TX

6 p.m.

Georgia Southern University

3-8, 0-2SBC

UT Arlington

6-6, 1-1SBC

Georgia Southern

UT Arlington

Photo by: Ellman Photography

1/2/2016 8:50:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Georgia Southern will play next four games at home starting Thursday, Jan. 7 against South Alabama

ARLINGTON, Texas – Not much went right for the Georgia Southern women's basketball team Saturday night as the University of Texas at Arlington Mavericks scored early, often and in bunches en route to a 70-31 rout inside the College Park Center in a Sun Belt Conference tilt.

The Eagles (3-8, 0-2 SBC) made just nine of their 41 shots from the field (22.0%), including going 3-for-11 (27.3%) from three-point range. The Eagles also turned the ball over a season-high 22 times which the Mavericks (6-6, 1-1 SBC) turned into 23 points.

Junior forward/center Patrice Butler led the way in scoring for GSU, scoring nine points including going 4-for-4 from the charity stripe.

In total, nine different Eagles scored in the game. Sierra Butler was second on the squad with six points and Jessica Marcus led the team with a game-high-tying six rebounds.

For UTA, Cierra Johnson led a quartet of Mavs in double figures with 17 points off an impressive 8-for-9 shooting performance. Amara Wainwright finished the game with 15 and Breck Clark added 11 while 2015 Sun Belt Conference Freshman of the Year Rebekah Van Dijk chipped in 10.

The Mavericks ended the game shooting an impressive 55.6% (30-54) from the field, but struggled at the free throw line where they connected on just four of their seven attempts. The 30 field goals scored matched a season-high allowed by the Eagles which came against SEC foe Georgia.

THE STORY
UT Arlington opened the game on an 8-0 run that was broken up when Patrice Butler hit a three-pointer from just right of straight away nearly 2:30 into the game. Unfortunately, the Mavs didn't let that slow them down as they closed out the first quarter on a 16-4 run.

Things did not get any easier for head coach Kip Drown's squad down the stretch as the Mavericks scored 17 points in the second quarter and 23 points in the third compared to just nine and five by the Eagles.

QUOTABLES FROM COACH DROWN
"This all starts with me and we did a poor, poor job tonight," said Drown. "We had a very poor performance tonight and did not represent ourselves well, I felt.

"They came out right off the bat and attacked us," Drown continued. "They were knocking down shots from the perimeter as well as from inside and were just playing very well. They got us back on our heels and we never fully recovered and it was just a very frustrating night for us in a lot of ways. We have to find a way to come back from this and find out who wants to play hard for 40 minutes."

NEXT UP
After being on the road for four games spread out over two weeks the Eagles return home to the friendly confines of Hanner Fieldhouse for a four-game homestand. Georgia Southern will first welcome South Alabama to Statesboro on Thursday, Jan. 7 for a 5 p.m. game before Troy comes to town on Saturday, Jan. 9 for a 2:30 p.m. contest.

Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. For tickets to Georgia Southern athletics events, visit GSEagles.com/tickets.