Southern Miss
UCF
Women's Basketball Team Falls To UCF, 70-60
1/21/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 21, 2010
ORLANDO, Fla. - The UCF Knights used a 13-2 run midway through the second half in muscling their way to a 70-60 victory over Southern Miss Thursday night in claiming their first Conference USA victory of the season.
Southern Miss falls to 4-14 overall and 0-5 in C-USA play, while UCF snapped a five game losing streak and improved to 4-10 and 1-4.
"We started the game following our game plan to a tee," Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "When UCF had that 13-2 run going into the half, we stop doing what we had done earlier to get a lead. We stopped boxing out, we stop running our lanes, we turned the ball over rather than attacking and that hurt us. When things are good, we're good, but when things are bad, we are bad. We continue to struggle because we don't have the leadership that we need."
After missing the last two games recovering from a concussion, Pauline Love responded with a double-double of 16 points and 15 rebounds. Candace Rucker led Southern Miss with a game-high 19 points.
With the scored knotted at 45-45 at the 11:21 mark in the game, UCF's Marshay White connected on a three-pointer, sparking the 13-2 run. During that run, the Knights connected 5-of-8 from the field that included three triples. The UCF defense held Southern Miss scoreless over five minutes as Rucker finally ended the scoreless drought when she hit one-of-two free throws.
After UCF pushed its lead to 13 points (63-50) with 5:11 remaining, Southern Miss put together a 6-0 run to cut the lead to seven, 63-56, at the 3:56 mark as that was as close as the Lady Eagles would get. UCF continued to hit timely baskets off offensive rebounds to seal the win.
UCF's Emma Cannon and Chelsea Wiley paced the Knights with 17 points apiece with White adding 12 points and D'Nay Daniels scoring 10.
After a slow start, Southern Miss finally got on track matching basket for basket with the Knights in the early going. Wiley game the Knights a 10-9 lead on one of her two treys in the half and followed with a short jump on the baseline to help UCF go up 12-9.
Southern Miss responded with back-to-back layups by Brown and Love taking the lead at 13-12. Danielle Johnson sparked a 10-2 run over two minutes that pushed the Lady Eagles' lead 23-14. Four different players scored during the run.
With Southern Miss leading 25-16, UCF regrouped and scored 11 unanswered points fueled by Emma Cannon and Wiley. The UCF defense held USM scoreless for almost five minutes. Johnson ended the Knights' run hitting one-of-two free throw. Erin Gatling then hit a jumper on the right baseline to give the Eagles' a 28-27 lead, but Cannon was able to harness an offensive rebound and put it back sending UCF into intermission up, 29-28.
Southern Miss had only 17 turnovers, but UCF made the most scoring 24 points.
Southern Miss continues its road swing, playing at Tulane on Saturday at 2 p.m.
