Southern Miss
Michigan
Michigan Defeats Southern Miss, 91-54
11/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 19, 2009
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Southern Miss fell behind early and struggled shooting from the field as Michigan ran past Southern Miss, 91-54, Thursday night.
Tanesha Washington and Danielle Johnson led Southern Miss (1-2) with 14 points each.
"I said in our pregame that if we do not score early, we will have a hard time winning," Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "We did not make the easy baskets. We were not very good as a team. I thought there were a couple of bright spots. Tanesha came back and played well. Danielle Johnson is working her way right into more and more minutes. She has become a very consistent scorer for us. Geneshia Dunbar may not have scored for us tonight, but she was the only player we had who got in there and battled with (Krista) Phillips. She did a nice job for us defensively."
Southern Miss spotted the home team a 10-point lead to start the game. Shooting woes plagued the Lady Eagles early, allowing Michigan to jump out to a 10-0 lead before Pauline Love connected on a three-pointer at the 16:30 mark.
Michigan (3-0) pushed its lead to as many as 17 points, taking advantage of a smaller Southern Miss team and getting several easy baskets inside and connecting on several long range shots as well.
The Lady Eagles finally got on track as Danielle Johnson jump-started the Southern Miss offense when she connected on a deep three to start a 13-4 run that cut Michigan's lead to eight, 28-20, at 5:48 mark in the half.
Michigan closed out the half on a 12-5 run over the last 5:33 to take a 40-25 lead into intermission.
The Wolverines out-shot the Lady Eagles, 57.4 percent to 34.0 percent from the field and scored 33 points off 27 USM turnovers.
Following the intermission, Michigan picked up where they left off using a 7-2 run to go up, 47-27. Danielle Johnson and Washington hit back-to-back baskets to get the margin under 20, but the Wolverines used a 15-3 run over six minutes to put the game out of reach.
Michigan placed five players in double figures led by Dayeesha Hollins with 18, followed by Krista Phillips with 13, Veronica Hicks and Carmen Reynolds scored 12 points apiece and Jenny Ryan chipped in 10.
Southern Miss returns home to begin a three-game homestand, beginning with William Carey on Nov. 23 at 7 p.m., before hosting their annual Lady Eagle Classic, Nov. 27-28, with Jackson State, Georgia and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
