I didn't watch the first part of the game, but the second quarter didn't look good. And then Anigwe picked up her 3rd and 4th fouls quickly in the 3rd quarter. And the team responded well, getting better quality shots and a few turnovers. Now we are up 9 with 8 minutes remaining, Kristine back in.

It seems to me that Anigwe and Range often rush their inside shots, ending up being more of a throw than a shot. Against this team, no one is going to block them, so why not use the extra split second to dial the shot in? Just my impression.

Good games by Cowling and Davidson. Anigwe got it going in the 4th. Poor FT shooting though. That's going to hurt in some other games if they don't improve. Up 73-58 with one minute left after Penina's steal and breakaway.

We were down 10-0 after the first couple of minutes, then came back to lead 13-12. After that it was fairly close until late in the game.

It looked to me like we were somewhat disorganized in half-court offense against their zone. We didn't get many good looks and we took a bunch of rushed/forced layups. That may have been partly due to the officials, who let SCU get away with a lot of inside fouling in the first half. In the second half the officials called more fouls, the SCU bigs all got in foul trouble, and Kristine really got going. She had 4 fouls herself from early in the third quarter but was able to avoid her fifth.

Our half court defense gave up too many open threes and layups, most of which SCU made. And unlike us SCU also made a respectable fraction of their free throws.

IMHO what turned the game our way was our press. We forced a ton of turnovers, and perhaps of greater import got SCU tired in the second half. Their defense broke down a bit, their shots stopped falling, and their rebounding became less aggressive. Even though we went most of the way with just 7 players we clearly had better athletes.

My take is although we won this one going away we have a lot of work to do on getting better shots, playing half court defense, making layups, and making free throws. I'm optimistic as our top 8 include 3 freshies who should come up to speed.