Bowling Green 60, UW-Milwaukee 50
Buffalo 73, Niagara 64
Kentucky 71, Central Michigan 68
Texas Pan-Am 81, Eastern Michigan 75
Illinois-Chicago 72, Miami 69
Courtesy of MAC Athletic Communications Departments
Bowling Green 60, UW-Milwaukee 50
Sophomore Rachel Konieczki scored a career-high 15 points, all in the second half, as the Bowling Green State University women's basketball team rallied for a 60-50 road win over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Saturday afternoon (Nov. 22). The non-conference game was held at the Klotsche Center.
With the win, the Falcons improve to 2-1 on the young season, while dropping the Panthers to 1-2 on the year.
Both teams shot poorly from the floor in the first half, and the hosts led by a 16-13 score at the intermission. BG briefly took the lead early in the second half, but the Panthers quickly went back on top, and Macie Dorow's layup gave UWM a nine-point lead, the hosts' largest of the game, with a transition layup with 7:37 to go.
Following that layup, however, the Falcons would outscore the hosts by a 32-13 count the rest of the way.
The comeback began when Konieczki hit a long two-pointer out of a BG timeout. The Falcons got a stop on the next possession, forcing the Panthers into an off-balance shot at the shot-clock horn, and redshirt junior Erica Donovan's rebound led to junior Miriam Justinger's driving layup on the next possession.
Justinger's defense on UWM's Ashley Green resulted in the Panthers' leading scorer dribbling the ball off her own leg and out of bounds. On the next possession, Konieczki took a Justinger pass and drained a corner three-pointer, and the Falcons were within two points as the hosts used a timeout with 5:40 remaining.
Out of that timeout, however, Donovan stole the ball from Jaleesa Armstrong, headed downcourt and hit a layup while being fouled. The ensuing free throw gave the Falcons a 10-0 run and a one-point lead.
Milwaukee's Jenny Lindner hit a corner three to briefly give her team the lead once again, but Donovan knocked down a pair of free throws, then fed Konieczki for a left-wing triple with just over four minutes left. After a defensive stop, Donovan got back to the line and hit two more shots for a 45-40 advantage.
Jordyn Swan's three-point play cut the lead to two points, but senior Deborah Hoekstra was fouled and knocked down two shots from the stripe for a 47-43 lead with 3:04 remaining. After a missed shot by Lindner, Hoekstra grabbed the rebound. The senior's three-point try on the next possession went halfway down and came back out, but Donovan laid the ball back up and in for a six-point lead.
Then, Donovan took a charge from Green, giving the ball back to the Brown and Orange with 2:18 remaining. BG used all of the shot clock before turning the ball back over, and Green scored inside. A nice look by Donovan led to an easy Justinger layup with 1:17 to go, but Green hit a triple to cut BG's lead in half.
Leading, 51-48, the Falcons missed a shot on the next possession, but Justinger's rebound and layup made it a five-point game with 43.1 seconds left. The Panthers missed a shot, Hoekstra rebounded the ball and was fouled, and the senior hit two tosses for a 55-48 advantage. Armstrong canned a jumper with 27.1 seconds to go, but the home team would not score again, and BGSU then went 5-of-6 from the line to salt the game away.
Green, who entered the game averaging 33.0 points per game on the young season, had a game-high 23 points vs. the Falcons. She also had 10 rebounds, and was the only UWM player in double figures in either category.
Konieczki's 15-point output led the Falcons, and Donovan had 14 points and nine boards. Justinger, like Donovan, was not far away from a double-double, with 12 points and eight rebounds, and Justinger also had BG-best totals of three assists and four steals.
Sophomore Abby Siefker led the Falcons with 11 rebounds, as BGSU had a 46-41 advantage on the boards. Siefker had set a new career rebounding best by halftime.
The Falcons shot just 18.8 percent from the field in the first half, but connected on 13-of-31 second-half shots (41.9%) en route to a 30.2% success rate for the game. Milwaukee shot 42.9% in the second period and 33.3% on the afternoon.
Konieczki was 3-of-4 from three-point range in the win, while all of the other players in the game combined to go 6-of-43 from beyond the arc.
To say the teams stuggled offensively in the early stages of the game would be an understatement. The Falcons and Panthers combined for 10 missed shots and six turnovers before Justinger earned the game's first points on a driving layup with 4:12 gone.
The Falcons held the hosts off the scoreboard for five-and-a-half minutes, but when Green hit a layup, drew a foul and made the ensuing free throw, the Panthers had a 3-2 lead. Donovan answered with a short pull-up jumper, however, and when Justinger fed freshman Rachel Myers for a three-pointer from the wing, the Falcons had a 7-3 lead.
Green, however, tied the game with back-to-back baskets just 19 seconds apart. She converted a second-chance layup, then stole the ball and hit another layup. Swan's bucket midway through the half gave Milwaukee a 9-7 lead, and the score remained the same for over three minutes.
Siefker pulled down one of her many first-half rebounds and put the ball off glass and in to tie the contest at 9-9. Siefker's career rebounding high entering the day was six, but she had nine rebounds by halftime on Saturday.
When Donovan got a putback of her own at the 4:47 mark, BG had a four-point lead, and Hoekstra's pull-up jumper made if a 13-9 game with just over three minutes left until the break. But, Green made a layup, Cree Hammond hit a three-pointer and Green sank a pair of free throws for a 16-13 UWM halftime advantage.
The hosts doubled that lead in the first minute of the second half, as Swan hit a trey. Justinger made a second-chance layup to cut the UWM lead to 19-15, but Donovan was called for her third foul with 18:08 to go, then was whistled for her fourth foul of the day, away from the ball, as Konieczki hit a driving layup at the 17:43 mark.
Siefker and senior Jasmine Matthews blocked back-to-back UWM shots on the next possession, but Green wound up making a layup for a 22-17 advantage. Matthews' offensive rebound led to a three-point play with just over 15 minutes remaining, and less then a minute later, Hoestra deflected a UWM pass to Konieczki, and Konieczki quickly threw the ball to Hoekstra, who was ahead of the pack for a layup that tied the score. Two Justinger charity tosses gave BG a 24-22 lead with 13:51 to go.
But, the hosts scored six-straight points, with the first four coming from Steph Kostowicz, and after Matthews split a pair of free throws, two Kostowicz tosses were followed by a Green three-pointer, giving Milwaukee a 33-25 lead. Konieczki connected from beyond the arc, after a pass from Justinger, but Kelsey Cunningham answered with a long two-pointer for the hosts, and a BG miss and Milwaukee defensive rebound led to Dorow's run-out layup and that 37-28 lead.
Konieczki scored 10 points in the game's final 7:06, with the first eight coming in a span of less than three minutes. The last of those eight points came on her trey with 4:08 remaining that broke a 40-all tie and gave BG the lead for good.
The Falcons now prepare for a trip to the left coast to participate in the DoubleTree LA Westside Thanksgiving Classic, hosted by Loyola Marymount University, next weekend. BGSU will play UC Irvine on Friday (Nov. 28), and the Falcons will face either UAB or the host school the following day.
Buffalo 73, Niagara 64
BUFFALO, NY – The State University of New York, Buffalo women's basketball team put up 46 second-half points to defeat visiting Niagara 73-64 Saturday afternoon at Alumni Arena. The win was UB's (2-1) 10th straight over the Purple Eagles (0-3).
"A great team effort," said head coach Felisha Legette-Jack. "I thought the first half, they (Niagara) owned the court. In the second half, we did a great job of coming together, playing for each other... We did a tremendous job of earning the right to win."
Trailing NU 36-27 at the half, the Bulls looked to pull away with a 19-4 streak over the course of 7:11 to open the second. Niagara answered with a run of its own, while holding UB scoreless for four minutes. NU regained the advantage, 51-46 at 8:58, with 11 straight.
Redshirt-sophomore Rachael Gregory and junior Mackenzie Loesing combined to score 21 of the Bulls' final 27 points. Gregory tallied all 12 of her points, 10 of which came on 10-for-12 shooting at the charity stripe, over the final 7:34 of play. Loesing, who also went 10-for-12 at the line, recorded nine of her team-best 18 down the stretch. Her 18 points brought her to an even 900 for her career.
Loesing drained a three on an Alexus Malone assist in the midst of a 13-0 UB run that secured the Bulls an infinite lead. UB took its largest lead of the game, 72-62, with 25 ticks lingering on the clock.
NU led by as many as 11 at the four-minute mark of the first. After a slow start to the contest that featured a combined 24 points in the first 10 minutes, Niagara grabbed a 9-7 edge at 14:42 -- an advantage that remained for the remainder of the period.
Malone, a sophomore, secured another spot on the all-time single-season rebounding list with a 17-board performance. Rewriting her previous career-high of 16, the 17 rebounds rank tied for eighth in program history. Malone added 15 points for her second straight double-double, and dished out three assists. Gregory also secured her second double-double in as many games with a 12-point, 10 rebound performance.
Loesing had a season- and game-best four steals. Sophomore Camera Miley tallied nine points and senior Kristen Sharkey pulled down nine boards to help the Bulls to their second consecutive 60-rebound game. UB outrebounded the Purple Eagles, 60-45.
Led by Meghan McGuinness' 22 points, Niagara shot 33.3 percent from the floor to UB's 28.4 percent performance. Sylvia Maxwell added 16 and Val McQuade 11. Donisha Watson had a team-best 12 rebounds and two blocks.
The Bulls, who shot a season-high 74.4 percent (29-for-39) from the free throw line, lead the all-time series, 20-18, dating back to the 1968-69 season.
UB travels south to seventh-ranked Duke on Tuesday for a 6:30 pm tip at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Kentucky 71, Central Michigan 68
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - An effort like that will, against most opponents, put the Central Michigan women's basketball team in very good position.
Jennifer O'Neill hit five three-pointers en route to a game-high 19 points Saturday as Kentucky held off the hard-charging Chippewas, 71-68, in what turned out to be an early season non-conference thriller before 2,361 at McGuirk Arena.
"I told our team I was very proud of the way they battled," said CMU coach Sue Guevara, whose team trailed by as many as 20 points in the first half and was down 19, 47-28, at halftime. "We battled back. I know you can't win a game in the first half, but you can lose it, and I thought that's what happened to us today.
"It was a really good game and now we have to build on that."
Jessica Green scored 16 points, Lorreal Jones added 12 points and freshman Cassandra Breen had 11 for CMU (1-1), which turned in a much better effort than it did six days prior in a season-opening 72-70 win over UMass.
The Wildcats (4-0, who have made five consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament, are ranked ninth in the USA Today Coaches Poll and 13th by the Associated Press.
"So our team can understand, the next game we play isn't going to be Kentucky," Guevara said. "So they have to come ready to play like it is Kentucky, every single game. We have to bring the best effort we can."
The Chippewas trailed by 20 points with under 16 minutes remaining, then slowly chipped away. They managed to claw within eight, 60-52, at the 10-minute mark and drew within three, 69-66, on a Breen three-pointer - one of her three on the night - with 2 minutes, 59 seconds left.
A Jewel Cotton free throw with 41 seconds to play got CMU back to within three, 71-68. Green's potential game-tying three-pointer with 3 seconds left hit the rim and bounced off.
"We're fighters," Green said. "We don't give up, even when we're down. Keep playing. In the locker room at halftime we just picked each other up and talked about what we needed to work on. We're not blaming anybody or anything like that. We just talked to each other about what we needed to do.
"It was step by step by step. We didn't rush anything."
A switch to a zone defense helped to slow the Wildcats and allowed the Chippewas to make their move in the second half.
"It wasn't like they could just take it and ram it down our throats," Guevara said of the effectiveness of the zone. "They actually had to make some perimeter passes and then take long shots."
All three of Breen's triples came in the second half, the result of the Chippewas becoming more aggressive offensively in attacking the basket.
"It was our ability to get to the basket," Guevara said. "Just down the stretch we had a couple key turnovers, a foul. It's the little things that if we can clean up, we can play with people."
The Chippewas made just 17 of their 27 free throw attempts (63 percent) on the night, including a 10-for-17 effort in the second half.
"Shooting 63 percent from the free throw line, it's going to be tough to win," Guevara said. "But we battled and I think that's the biggest thing."
Jas'Mine Bracey and Jones grabbed 10 rebounds apiece as CMU held a slight 48-46 edge on the boards. That the Chippewas were able to play with a team such as Kentucky when their top scoring threat, Crystal Bradford, scored just six points (on 2-of-12 shooting), is encouraging.
And, while playing the zone defense was critical in CMU's ability to make a game of it, the pace was relatively fast from start to finish. Nine of the 10 Chippewas who played logged at least 11 minutes.
"What it showed me tonight is that I have people on that bench that I can go to," Guevara said. "If we can play fast and play like that, we'll be alright. We want to play fast, and we can play fast. If I can play 10 kids, let's go. I think that's what it showed our team also."
Texas Pan-Am 81, Eastern Michigan 75
EDINBURG, Texas (EMUEagles.com) – Despite a career-best 20 points from Shannise Heady (Hazel Crest, Ill.-Hillcrest-Seton Hall), the Eastern Michigan University women's basketball team could not hold on to a second half lead at the University of Texas-Pan American Saturday, Nov. 22. UTPA rallied to defeat the Eagles, 81-75, in non-conference action at the UTPA Fieldhouse.
With the Eagles clinging to five-point edge with 11 minutes to play, the Broncs used a 22-8 rally over the next 7:30 to flip the tables en route to the six-point decision. Hild Kjartansdottir was the key during the UTPA run, posting 11 of her 16 points as the Broncs were 7-of-15 from the floor and 6-of-7 from the free-throw line during that stretch. Meanwhile, Eastern Michigan connected on just one-of-eight field goal tries.
With the setback, the Eagles fell to 1-2 on the young season while the Broncs upped its record at 4-3.
It was the first career double-double for Heady, who finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Her previous career-high point output was 19 points and nine caroms in a WBI postseason contest against the University of Evansville, March 20, 2014. Sophomores Cha Sweeney (Toledo, Ohio-Rogers) and Janay Morton (Brooklyn Park, Minn.-Osseo) also reached double-digits in points with 15 and 12, respectively.
Shawnte' Goff led Texas-Pan American with 26 points on 9-of-21 shooting.
In a contest that featured 47 fouls, the Broncs were 18-for-26 from the free throw stripe, including going 7-of-8 in the closing moments. EMU made 20-of-27 charity tosses; however, it committed 26 turnovers that led to 30 points for UTPA.
In an opening period that featured three ties and five lead changes, the Green and White jumped out to an early 9-4 edge with Morton and Sweeney pushing the tempo. However, a 17-4 run by UTPA over the next 4:28 gave Texas-Pan American an eight-point cushion, 21-13, with 12:02 to play in the period.
The Eagles would respond with a quick burst of offense as well, retaking the lead with 3:45 to play in the half when Sweeney sank her eighth point of the day. The teams would exchange scores with the Eagles still clinging to a two-point advantage, 43-41, as two teams headed to the lockerroom at the half.
The Eagles were lead in the first half by Sweeney with 11 points on 5-of-11 shooting to go along with five rebounds. Classmate Morton also turned in a great half with nine points, four rebounds and a pair of steals. Two players for UTPA reached double figures in points as Goff poured in 15 while Walker had 13.
Eastern Michigan recorded a 46.7 percent (16-of-35) shooting clip from the floor, while the Broncs were nearly as efficient at 37.5 percent (15-of-40). UTPA did most of its damage from distance connecting on seven treys, but EMU was just as good in the lane with 20 points in the paint.
Following the intermission, the Eagles saw the edge grow to as many as eight, 49-41, on three consecutive baskets by Heady and Kehoe. Yet again, the pesky Broncs would answer by scoring seven of the next nine points over two-minute span to get back within striking distance.
Heady would connect on a jumper at the 14:49 mark to make it 53-48, but the Eagles' offense would go ice-cold from the floor missing their next six field goal attempts. Luckily, EMU was still able to connect on 8-of-13 free throws, but the Broncs surged on top 66-63 with just under seven minutes to go.
The UTPA edge grew to nine, 76-67, on a three-pointer by Kjartansdottir. Eastern Michigan chipped away to get back within four on a jumper by Heady at the 11:14 mark, but Texas-Pan American closed out the game by making 7-of-8 charity tosses in the final four minutes to seal the victory.
The Eagles return home to the friendly confines of the Convocation Center Tuesday, Nov. 25, against NCAA Division II foe Hillsdale College. Game time is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on WEMU (89.1 FM). To purchase tickets, visit EMUTix.com or call 734.487.2282.
Illinois-Chicago 72, Miami 69
OXFORD, Ohio—Despite a thrilling finish and a back-and-forth struggle that included 16 lead changes and 12 ties, the Miami University women’s basketball team (1-1) was edged in a hard-fought battle to UIC (3-0) on Saturday afternoon at Millett Hall, 72-69.
Two RedHawks posted double-doubles to spark Miami. It was the second double-double in as many games for freshman guard Ana Richter, posting 14 points and 10 rebounds. Junior forward Hannah McCue also notched a double-double, the first of the season and third of her career with 16 points to lead the RedHawks and 10 rebounds. Freshman guard Baleigh Reid was the other RedHawk to score in double figures with 13 points.
Sparked by a trio of free throws and a triple from freshman guard Kayla Brown, Miami used a 7-0 run early in the first half to stake a 10-4 lead by the 14:43 mark. A pair of free throws from freshman guard Jazz Smith extended the RedHawks lead to 16-8 by the 12:11 mark.
UIC chiseled away at the Miami lead and notched a three-point edge by the 7:18 mark, 21-18. The teams battled over the remainder of the half, going back and forth, with Smith hitting a pair of key three-pointers that helped Miami enter the intermission tied at 37.
The close play of the first half continued in the second as Miami and UIC traded baskets throughout the period. McCue added 10 points in the half, including two key three-point shots. A jumper from Richter gave the RedHawks a one-point lead with 3:55 remaining in the contest, but the Flames continued to fight back with tough defense and rebounding. After being fouled on a UIC missed foul shot with 49 seconds left, Reid sank both of her free throws to bring Miami to within one. The RedHawks had two good looks on their final three-point attempts in the dying seconds, but neither one of the shots went through to tie the game.
Eight points from Miami’s bench were key to its tough second half performance, with both Richter and her fellow freshman Smith turning in strong performances. The RedHawks also assisted their cause with 22 second-half rebounds and 42.3% shooting.
Miami hits the road for a pair of games, beginning with a 7 p.m. game at Oakland on Friday, Nov. 28 followed by a 2 p.m. game at 13th-ranked Michigan State on Sunday, Nov. 30.
