Women's Basketball Scoreboard (Feb. 6)
Oakland 80, Milwaukee 67
Bethany Watterworth scored 22 points and Elena Popkey added 20 as the Oakland women's basketball team (9-13, 4-5 HL) used a second half offensive explosion to defeat Milwaukee (7-14, 3-5 HL), 80-67, Tuesday evening inside the Athletics Center O'rena. OU outscored UWM 56-32 in the second half and shot 55.9 percent from the floor.
"I'm really proud of our basketball team," said head coach Jeff Tungate. "We easily could have quit after the first half the way we were shooting the ball. Give credit to our team as we shot 56 percent in the second half. We turned up the intensity and started playing harder than we did in the first half. It was a great team win and should give us some momentum moving forward."
Watterworth finished 9-of-10 from the free throw line and Popkey tallied her fourth 20-point performance of the season after scoring just two points over the last two games. Kim Bee and Olivia Nash each recorded double-doubles. Bee tallied 16 points and a season-best 12 rebounds, while Nash finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Oakland trailed by 11 points at the half but erased the deficit quickly as they scored 10 straight points to tie the game at 47-47. OU would go on to outscore UWM 33-20 the rest of the game. Popkey scored 16 of her 20 in the second period as Nash added 13 points. The Golden Grizzlies outrebounded the Panthers 31-16 in the half and held a 14-4 second-chance points advantage.
The Golden Grizzlies fell behind 35-24 at the half as the Panthers used a 20-9 run to end the half that included scoring the final six points heading into intermission. OU shot just 20.6 percent in the half and failed to hit a 3-pointer for the first time in a half all season.
OU finished the game with a season-best 59 rebounds, 22 more than UWM, and held a 23-10 offensive rebound advantage. Milwaukee was led by Angela Rodriguez with 23 points.
