After two strong victories beginning the season, Temple’s Women’s Basketball team loses their first game of the season to a Rutgers team that had control for practically the whole game. During the whole game, only four Temple players scored, and only two, Alliya Butts and Feyonda Fitzgerald, scored over three points for the whole outing. On the contrary, Rutgers had every single player score at least once throughout the game. A 61-51 loss may not look bad, but the game was as one-sided as it could be for most of the affair.
For the first quarter, it took almost three minutes for anybody to score, which could explain how it happened to be such a low scoring game for both teams. While the score was 5-5, Rutgers went on a 8-0 run, highlighted by a dunk from Desiree Keeling, for about two minutes, until Temple eventually made a couple free throws at the end of the quarter. For comparison, four different players on Rutgers scored at this point, while only two scored for Temple.
The second quarter proved to be more of the same as Rutgers got the better of Temple, while it was still a very low scoring quarter by both teams. There were no big runs on either side, but Rutgers still made an attempt to diversify the scoring, with three other players scoring at least once in the quarter, while Temple still only had their two main scorers score. By the end of the half, Rutgers had seven different players score for 26 points, while Temple only had two players score for 15.
In the third quarter, neither team got the edge over another. Both teams wound up with 16 points for the quarter, but another player on Temple, Tanaya Atkinson, finally got involved in the scoring. While Temple finally had another player score, another player from Rutgers also got involved in the scoring. By the end of the third quarter, everyone except for one, had scored at least one point for the game.
During the last quarter, Temple narrowly outscored Rutgers 20-19, but, being down by 11, that didn’t help too much for the ending result. Similar to the rest of the game, there were no big runs committed by either team. However, Temple’s fourth player to score, Taylor Robinson, eventually did, while the last player of Rutgers not to score, Briyona Canty, did as well.
The key to Rutgers victory is pretty obvious, as it was their level of unselfish play and diversity in scoring that led them to this win. Temple’s two top guards scored well, as Alliya Butts wound up with 18 points, and Feyonda Fitzgerald wound up with 27 points. Fitzgerald was also very effective in collecting rebounds and causing turnovers, as she had a team high of nine rebounds, and a game high of three steals. Temple is now 2-1 this season, and looking to get back on track on Tuesday against Quinnipiac
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