Women's Basketball falls to No. 25/24 Iowa State, 67-48
Feb. 6, 2013
AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas Women’s Basketball team fell to No. 25/24 Iowa State, 67-48, in Wednesday’s Big 12 Conference contest at the Frank Erwin Center. Freshman guard Celina Rodrigo scored a career-high 10 points as the Texas guards got off to a hot start. Rodrigo, junior Chassidy Fussell and freshman Empress Davenport teamed up to score the Longhorns’ first 13 points. Davenport scored 13 points on the night, just one point shy of her career-best. Texas (9-12, 2-8 Big 12) was able to keep the game close throughout the first half due in part to a season-low 14 turnovers throughout the game. With five minutes remaining in the opening frame, freshman guard Gigi Mazionyte got into the scoring column with an inside layup after an offensive rebound by Davenport. Mazionyte then got a steal and dished the ball to Fussell, who put in her own layup to bring Texas within one point at 24-25. Iowa State (16-5, 7-4 Big 12) used clutch shooting to close out the first half on a 14-0 run to give the Cyclones a 39-24 advantage heading into the locker room. The run was fueled by three-pointers from sophomore guards Nikki Moody and Brynn Williamson, and center Anna Prins, who led all scorers with 14 points at halftime. The Cyclones shot 7-of-13 from beyond the arc in the opening stanza. Iowa State’s hot shooting continued when Prins stretched the lead to 18 with a three-pointer in the opening minute of the second half. Davenport and the Texas defense got the Longhorns back into the game over a 12-minute stretch, cutting the lead to seven on a three-pointer by Davenport with seven minutes remaining in the game. During the run, Texas held Iowa State to 0-of-7 from three-point distance. The Cyclones broke out of their slump with back-to-back three-point baskets, which were part of a 12-2 run to put the lead back up to 63-46 with under three minutes to play. Prins led Iowa State with 19 points and was one of four Cyclones with double-digit scoring efforts on the night. Texas returns to the Erwin Center Saturday night for another Big 12 matchup with No. 1/1 Baylor. The game will be broadcast at 7 p.m. on LHN.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES Celina Rodrigo Chassidy Fussell Nneka Enemkpali POSTGAME QUOTES On thoughts on how this stole the momentum the team has built over last few games: I’m disappointed because I thought we would come out and play harder with more intensity. I don’t think it was that we didn’t understand what they were going to bring to the table, because we already played them once. We knew that it was going to be a physical basketball game and we knew they would have a presence in the paint and they did. We didn’t have enough urgency tonight. I thought there were so many critical plays in the game that really boiled down to that they wanted the ball more than we wanted it. In particular just some possessions where I thought we were still in the game. There were 50-50 balls that we just never seemed to get a piece of that really, I thought, were a lot of differences in the game. And rebounding. We shot 37 percent to their 49 but we still get out rebounded and that just is not acceptable effort. On thoughts when brought the game close and then went cold: 50-50 balls. Absolutely. Interesting that you point that out because that was a huge swing in the game because we had made the effort, again, one more time. We got down a little bit early, we came back, which we have been doing, and the character of our team right now is not bad because we are continuing to come back from deficits. But you can only come back so much before you have got to take advantage of things. And we did not take advantage of the fact that we were on a run, we were one down, we got a stop, ball lands on the floor, we don’t get it, they pitch it out for a three, and the very next possession we don’t pay attention to detail again. I can’t continue to blame it on youth because these players that are playing right now have had a lot of minutes. We have got to understand the urgency of this league and we didn’t look like we understood it tonight. Sophomore F Nneka Enemkpali On Texas’ biggest problems in the game: Their two post players are really strong so you have to give them credit. Offensively, we were unable to really just bury them the way we buried TCU and Kansas State. Defensively, they buried us in what we should’ve been doing to them. Freshman G Empress Davenport On thoughts of first year players still not ready: I think we have played together enough to work together as a team and know what to do and what not to do. IOWA STATE QUOTES On slowing down Texas’ inside presence: That was a big part of the plan. I’m not going to lie to you, we talked at length about making sure Chassidy Fussell didn’t get off and make a lot of shots and then we really wanted to make it hard for Texas’ big players. We wanted to try and double-team them when we could and not give them a good initial position around the basket and not give them offensive rebounds. We talked about playing them even and see what happens. Texas’ inside players are hard to guard but the numbers tonight were really good and were certainly a key to the game. On 3-point shooting success: It’s kind of always the game plan for us. We shoot a lot of three’s. We knew that they were going to be aggressive on the ball and attack the ball in transition. We thought we would have some dribble-drive and kick-out opportunities. A lot of that comes from defensive rebounding. With defensive rebounding you can open the court and run the court. We have some kids that can shoot and Anna Prins shot the ball great. When we can bring Anna in the game we can spread the court and put five kids out there that can make threes. That creates opportunities for a lot of people. Senior C Anna Prins On slowing down Texas’ inside presence: For me, it’s always fun to play girls my size. You kind of get that competitive feeling when you know that there is a girl that is your size out there. It’s fun to compete. Texas’ big players score a lot of their points, so it was definitely our goal to defend the best as we could. Sophomore G Nikki Moody
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