Temple University Women’s Basketball(7-8, 7-4 American Athletic Conference) lost to Houston(10-5, 7-4 AAC) by a score of 89-52 on Wednesday afternoon at Pearson-McGonigle Hall.
Temple’s 26 turnovers were too much to overcome as Houston scored 40 points off those mistakes. The Owls were never able to bounce back from their early struggles. Head Coach Tonya Cardoza was clearly frustrated with her team’s lack of focus and composure:
“I was more disappointed in how we responded, as a whole, we just shut down. Here we go again, we’re turning the ball over, instead of really banding together and focusing more on getting stops. We were so worried about what happened the previous play, instead of regaining composure.”
The Owls struggled offensively from the opening tip-off, the team shot 20% from the field and scored only 10 points in the first quarter.
The offense only slightly improved throughout the rest of the game, the Owls finished the game shooting 37% from the field and 9.1% from the three-point line.
“Houston made open threes, we are not making those same open threes. So, if we are not making those open threes then everybody on the team is going to guard Mia Davis. Now Mia’s shot selection and Alexa Williamson’s shot selection ends up being something that’s forced as well, because they’re not guarding the other guys.”
Junior forward Alexa Williamson led the Owls with 19 points and eight rebounds, senior forward Mia Davis scored 17 points and had six rebounds as well.
The Owls offense was not productive, but the Cougars offense found success from the paint and perimeter throughout the game.
The Cougars were efficient, shooting 50.8% from the field and 44% from beyond the three-point line. Houston had multiple contributors from the guard position, their play offered some difficult matchups for the Owls defense.
“They have really [strong] guard play and they can all do the same thing, they can all put the ball on the floor and they can all shoot threes. So you’re basically one-on-one and they do a really good job of getting downhill on you.”
The Cougars had four different guards who finished in double-digits. Redshirt-sophomore guard Britney Oneyje led the team with 19-points and finished 5-8 from 3pt.
Freshman guard Laila Blair had 18 points and knocked down 50% of her three-point attempts. Junior guard Dymond Gladney and redshirt sophomore Miya Crump both finished with 13-points.
The Owls’ defense had a hard time containing the Cougars offense, they were not able to keep their opponents in front of them.
“I felt like they got downhill on us and then were helping off and getting wide open threes. I definitely don’t think we did a good job of keeping guys in front of us.”
Moving forward, the group wants to become more efficient on offense and defense, in order to limit the turnovers. Alexa Williamson made that clear:
“Being more aggressive on defense and following the game plan, sometimes we just lose sight of what we are supposed to be doing, and definitely fewer turnovers.”
The Owls will have to wait to do that however, as their Saturday (2/13) matchup vs East Carolina has been postponed due to contract tracing within ECU’s program.
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