Southern Illinois University
0-2
Loyola
3-0
Women's Basketball falls to Loyola 66-44
11/17/2011 | 12:00:00 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 17, 2011
By Bill Ford
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The Southern Illinois women's basketball team couldn't carry a strong start out of the halftime locker room as the Salukis fell to Loyola-Chicago 66-44 Thursday night at SIU Arena.
The Salukis (0-2) led by as much as 12 points in the first half and went into the break tied 30-30 before the Ramblers (3-0) dominated the second half, outscoring SIU 36-14.
"I'd be curious to go back and watch the film to see what happened when we were up 22-10," said SIU coach Missy Tiber. "We were off and running good. We hit a wall somehow. It's my job to figure out what happened at that point and fix it."
Everything clicked for the Salukis in the opening minutes. SIU found routine open looks out of its offense, scored on some put-backs, and hit each of their first six free throws. On the other end of the floor, Southern's defense held Loyola scoreless for a four-minute span while the Salukis scored 11 unanswered to build their biggest lead of the game at 22-10.
The Ramblers finally hit a layup to break their scoring draught, sparking a 10-0 run of their own. Suddenly, Southern was playing on its heels and only scored eight points the remainder of the half. Loyola held a brief lead with just under five minutes to play before going into halftime all tied up.
"I think in the first half we played solid defense and every opportunity we had to put them away, we didn't take advantage of it," Tiber said. "We were up 22-10 and they had their best post-player sitting on the bench with two fouls. That was the time to do it."
The Salukis offensive struggles only worsened after halftime, thanks to an improved Ramblers defense. Southern saw its 30.3 field goal percentage from the first half dip to 14.8 percent in the second as the Ramblers put more pressure on the Salukis.
"Preparing for this game my biggest fear was how good they are defensively and that their help-side defense would cause us some fits," Tiber said. "They took a lot of things that we wanted to do away from us and then the mixed in some 2-3 zone that rattled us.
Loyola scored seven quick points out of halftime, and held the Salukis to just one field goal in the first five minutes of the half. Urgent to close the gap, SIU kept launching 3-pointers that only found iron.
SIU came as close as 49-42 with just under nine minutes to play, but the Salukis only scored two points the rest of the game as the Ramblers distanced themselves late.
"We came out and within the first three minutes of the second half, the game was over from our kids mindset," Tiber said. "I'm disappointed in our efforts on both ends of the court and there's nobody to blame but me, I have to demand a little more out of these kids."
Teri Oliver led the Salukis with 18 points and three steals while Cartaesha Macklin added nine points and nine rebounds. Charnise Mitchell also pulled down nine boards for Southern while CiCi Shannon blocked five shots.
Loyola guard Monica Albano led all scorers with 23 points while Simone Law chipped in 15 points and nine boards for the Ramblers.
The Salukis will be back in action Sunday against Chicago State at SIU Arena.
