Wright State Runs Win Streak to Three Games

Women's Basketball Scoreboard (Nov. 24)
Wright State 90, Marian 37
#3/4 Tennessee 84, Oakland 50
Tennessee Tech 84, Valparaiso 78

Wright State 90, Marian 37
The Wright State women's basketball team scored 50 points in the first half and went on to a 90-37 decision over Marian Sunday in the opening game of the Gulf Coast Showcase at WSU's Nutter Center.

A 20-0 run, one that featured five points each from Tay'ler Mingo, Kim Demmings and Ivory James, put WSU up 24-3 with 9:29 remaining in the first half.  The Raiders later pushed the lead to as much as 48-15 on an Abby Jump three at the 3:14 mark before going into the break up 50-19.

Wright State shot 51 percent from the floor in the first half and was nine of 11 at the foul line while the Knights shot 30 percent.  WSU also held a 33-0 advantage in points off of turnovers as they forced Marian into 21 turnovers in the opening 20 minutes while committing seven.

The Raiders gradually built on the margin the rest of the way, with the biggest lead being 90-35 on a KC Elkins layup with 1:46 left.

WSU shot 47 percent overall, including nine of 27 from three-point range, and made 19 of 25 free throws while Marian shot 27 percent.  Wright State led 36-18 in points in the paint, 47-7 in points off of turnovers and 14-0 in fast-break points.

Demmings led the Raiders with 17 points, all in the first half, and had six rebounds while Mingo added 16 points, five assists and five steals.  James had a near double-double of 14 points and nine boards and Elkins chipped in 14 points and five steals.

Tennessee 84, Oakland 50
Oakland outworked and outhustled Tennessee for much of the day, but it couldn't come close to outscoring the third-ranked Lady Vols.

Bashaara Graves had 15 points and 11 rebounds Sunday as Tennessee capitalized on a second-half lineup change and rolled to an 84-50 victory over the winless Golden Grizzlies. Oakland trailed by only one point late in the second half before Tennessee went on a 21-0 run to put the game away.

"Obviously, it was a tale of two halves," Oakland coach Jeff Tungate said. "The first half, I thought we played extremely well and did some really good things. I thought our zone defense was very good. But we knew at halftime we're going to see a different team come out in Tennessee."

Victoria Lipscomb had 13 points and seven rebounds to lead Oakland, which is 0-5 for the first time in school history. Olivia Nash and Elena Popkey each added nine points, while Kim Bee had six points and nine rebounds.

In a game that figured to serve as little more than a tuneup for the Lady Vols before they headed to the Bahamas for the Junkaroo Jam, Oakland instead made Tennessee (5-0) work for its fifth straight victory.

Oakland only trailed 28-27 with 2:07 left in the first half when Amy Carlton missed a 3-pointer that would have put the Golden Grizzlies ahead. Tennessee's Jordan Reynolds sank a 3-pointer 10 seconds later to help Tennessee lead 34-27 at halftime.

"We were just playing basketball," Lipscomb said. "We were having fun. That was one thing we talked about coming in was just having fun. Even though it was a one-point game, I don't think a lot of people on the court realized it was a one-point game."

Oakland's zone defense bothered Tennessee for much of the first half. Tungate said Oakland typically plays a man-to-man defense about 75 percent of the time, but he employed a zone virtually the whole game Sunday.

"In a typical situation, we wouldn't play zone as much," Tungate said. "To keep up with their athleticism and size, we felt we had to go to 40 minutes of zone for the most part. Our kids played extremely hard."

Oakland outrebounded Tennessee 24-20 and outblocked the Lady Vols 4-1 in the first half despite facing a major height disadvantage. Oakland had three starters 5-foot-8 or shorter and didn't play anyone taller than 6-1. Tennessee has six players 6-2 or taller.

Tennessee attempted only one free throw in the first half

Lady Vols coach Holly Warlick responded to her team's sluggish start by altering her lineup to open the second half. Mercedes Russell, Jordan Reynolds and Andraya Carter joined usual starters Graves and Ariel Massengale on the floor. Meighan Simmons, Isabelle Harrison and Cierra Burdick were on the bench at the beginning of the second half after opening the game in the starting lineup.

"They put in what they thought was our best defensive lineup," Massengale said. "They knew that starting in the second half, we had to get after it and score points on that end of the floor."

The move paid off.

The Lady Vols showed much more energy and scored the first 15 points of the second half, as Graves scored six points during a 21-0 run that broke the game open. Oakland committed three turnovers in the first 41 seconds of the half and faced a 22-point deficit by the time Bee scored the Grizzlies' first second-half points with 15:19 remaining.

"The second half, we settled down and we decided to play, but the sign of a great team is we've got to play 40 minutes," Warlick said. "We're very capable of it. We've got the talent to do it. I'm just waiting for us to bust out and play the perfect game."

Tennessee never looked back and finally utilized its height advantage as the game wore on. Tennessee outrebounded Oakland 24-13 in the second half and finished the game with 44 rebounds to Oakland's 37.

"It's an outstanding basketball team and one that we'll be seeing here in the Final Four, I'm sure," Tungate said.

Tennessee Tech 84, Valparaiso 78
All five Valpo starters scored double-digit points, but Tennessee Tech ended Sunday's tilt on a 10-0 run to squeak out an 84-78 victory at Eblen Center in Cookeville.

Lexi Miller (Caledonia, Mich./Caledonia), Abby Dean (Carmel, Ind./Carmel), and Jessi Wiedemann (Palatine, Ill./Fremd) all chipped in career-highs in points. Meanwhile, Sharon Karungi (Kampala, Uganda/[Northern Oklahoma College]) recorded her second double-double in the last four games, but her pair of free throws with 2:08 to go were the last points the Crusaders put on the board.

Valpo utilized a 14-2 run midway through the first half to turn a four-point deficit into an eight-point advantage. Charae Richardson (Lafayette, Ind./Jefferson [Vincennes]) contributed nine of her eleven first-half points during the four-minute blitz that saw the Crusaders take a 30-22 lead.

The Brown and Gold led 38-33 at the break as they collected nine assists versus seven turnovers in the first twenty minutes. Valpo shot a season-best 53.8% in the first half led by a balanced scoring attack. In addition to Richardson's eleven, Miller and Dean scored eight and seven points, respectively.

The Crusaders' perimeter shooting hit a wall in the second half as they knocked down just four of 16 attempts from beyond the arc. A 19-2 Tennessee Tech run in the early part of the period gave the Golden Eagles a comfortable 60-49 cushion. Miller's third trey of the game with 8:37 remaining brought Tennessee Tech's run to a close. Furthermore, the three-pointer sparked a 15-3 Valpo run of its own. Miller sank her fourth three-ball to move the Crusaders ahead 64-63 with six minutes left. From that point, the game saw four ties and five lead changes.

Valpo extended its lead to 78-74 with two minutes to play. Tennessee Tech guard Diamond Henderson cut the deficit in half with a layup with 65 seconds on the clock.

The Golden Eagles' final eight points all came off free throws as they claimed an 84-78 win in front of nearly a thousand fans. Henderson scored 14 of her game-high 31 points in the last four-and-a-half minutes of the game. She was 5-of-11 from the floor and 9-for-9 from the line.

Though the team still searches for its first win of the season, many areas are trending in the right direction for the Brown and Gold.

The Crusaders shot 19-for-23 from the free-throw line. Their season aggregate now sits at 79.6%, tops in the Horizon League. Additionally, the number of turnovers are on a steady decline. Valpo committed a season-low twelve Sunday. For the first time in 2013-14, assists outnumbered turnovers.

"Tennessee Tech is very comparable to a lot of Horizon League teams. They're very athletic. They have good shooters. They play hard. So while conference play is still a ways away, this will serve us well down the road," head coach Tracey Dorow said.