Southern Illinois University
1-8
Wright State
5-4
Wright State surges past Women's Basketball 75-53
12/14/2010 | 12:00:00 | Women's Basketball
Dec. 14, 2010
By Bill Ford
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The Southern Illinois women's basketball team couldn't hold off Wright State's second-half surge in a 75-53 loss to the Raiders Tuesday night at SIU Arena.
The Salukis (1-8) trailed just 34-29 at halftime after a back-and-forth opening period, but the Raiders (5-4) dominated the second half behind a lopsided rebounding margin and a stellar outing from point guard LaShawna Thomas.
Wright State out-rebounded SIU 51-32 for the game, grabbing 20 offensive rebounds and scoring 16 second-chance points.
"I don't know how you can win giving up that many offensive rebounds," said SIU head coach Missy Tiber. "There is no defense for those second shots around the basket. We just didn't do our job by boxing out."
Along with rebounding woes, Thomas also proved a key source for the Salukis frustrations for the night. The senior finished with 23 points, nine assists and seven rebounds.
"We just didn't have anybody that could guard her. She probably accounted for 40 points by herself," Tiber said of Thomas. "That is just a phenomenal player that was creating wide open shots for her teammates."
Despite spotting the Raiders a 5-0 lead to start the game, the Salukis played strong early on. Southern took its first lead at 10-8 and led by as much as 16-12 at the 8:38 mark. The two teams saw 12 lead changes and five ties over the course of the half, with neither team able to find any separation.
Tiber said the Salukis were able to have success early on thanks to waiting patiently for good shots from distance. The Salukis went 7-for-20 from 3-point range in the opening frame.
Things started to roll the Raiders' way at the end of the half, though, as Wright State went into the locker room on a 6-0 run.
"For about 18 minutes of the first half, I thought we played really well," Tiber said. "We just made a couple of bad plays, took a bad shot and gave them a couple of easy looks at the end of the half. I really feel like things started to change then."
The Raiders sustained the momentum out of the locker room, scoring the first seven points of the second half before freshman point guard Brooke LeMar finally ended SIU's scoreless run with a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 41-32.
"Our start to the second half was horrible," SIU freshman Sidney Goins said. "We started with consecutive turnovers, and they were our-rebounding us from the jump. You could tell we came out flat in the second half."
Things only worsened for the Salukis as the half drug on. Southern couldn't fall back into the same offensive rhythm from the first half, and couldn't find a way to slow the Raiders' offense.
"We were just not doing the things that we were successful with in the first half," Tiber said. "We just got away from taking good shots and we got away from guarding the way we are capable of doing it."
Wright state scored 25 points off 20 Saluki Turnovers, and SIU shot just 30.8 percent from the field in the second half.
Goins led SIU with 16 points while Teri Oliver chipped in 12 points and LeMar finished with nine points, seven rebounds and six assists.
The Salukis will play their next four games on the road, starting Saturday at regional rival Murray State.
