Southern Miss
SMU
Women's Basketball Team Loses At SMU, 84-62
2/6/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 6, 2006
DALLAS, Texas - The Southern Miss Lady Eagle basketball team dropped a key Conference USA game, losing to SMU, 84-62, on Monday night in Moody Coliseum.
Southern Miss fell to 10-12 overall and 7-4 in C-USA, while SMU improved to 12-10 and 7-3.
Kendra Reed led Southern Miss with 20 points and seven rebounds, followed by Ashley Boehnel with 16 points and Ashley Harrell chipped in 10 points. SMU's Janielle Dddds led all scorers with 24 points and 10 rebounds and Katie Gross had 18 points, hitting six treys.
"We couldn't get into any type of flow in the game," Head Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "You have to give SMU a lot of credit; they took it to us defensively. They over-played the passing lanes and made it difficult for us to run our offense effectively. We got frustrated and we didn't adjust."
Southern Miss opened the game, scoring the first three points on a Reed three-pointer. SMU then reeled off 11 straight points, taking an 11-3 lead. The Lady Eagles got another three-pointer from Ashley Harrell, but the Mustangs answered with 12 straight points, building their lead to 23-6 at the 10:53 mark in the first half.
Southern Miss then put together a 12-3 run, cutting the lead to eight points, 26-18, at the 5:48 mark. The Lady Eagles continued to chip away at the SMU lead, finally cutting the lead to six, 32-26, before SMU closed out the half with an 11-2 run. SMU led 43-28 at the half.
"SMU is a very good shooting team," McNelis said. "They are skilled team with a good all-around game. They were a much better team than we were tonight."
SMU picked up where they left off and led by as many as 26 points half way through the second half. The Mustangs pushed their lead to 32 points, 78-46, with 6:356 remaining in the game. Southern Miss finished the last 6:24, out scoring SMU 16-6.
SMU connected on 32-of-60 from the field (53.3 percent), including 10-of-25 (40.0 percent) from behind the arc. The Mustangs also held the rebounding edge, 40-30.
"I thought Kendra (Reed) played well and with a lot of composure for us tonight," said McNelis.
Southern Miss returns to action on Friday, Feb. 10, in a 7 p.m., contest against Tulsas, who is the top team in the league.
