Photo credit: Greg Fiume
By Cameron Mays (@cameronemays)
Propelled by a career high in points from freshman guard Kamari Sims and a career high in rebounds from graduate forward Mayowa Taiwo, the Revolutionaries (11-17, 4-12 A10) took down UMass 59-54 in a back-and-forth affair at the Smith Center on Saturday afternoon.
GW came into the matchup having lost their last two away games against George Mason and Duquesne, but in those games had played much better and only had troubles with late game execution. Against the Minutewomen (3-26, 1-16 A10), the worst team in the conference, it was a chance for GW to finally put together a complete game and gain some momentum going into the last two games of the season.
Offensively GW had a balanced scoring effort in the first half. Sims followed up her solid offensive performance at Duquesne with nine points and two assists in the first half in 12 minutes. Sophomore Nya Robertson started the game off hitting a three, a good sign for her, but ultimately had a poor shooting game and only went 2-for-11 from the field for 10 points, eight of which came in the first half. Senior guard Asjah Inniss also hit one of her two threes early on while dishing out two assists.
Early on GW played tough defense and worked hard to keep UMass ball handlers in front and prevent open cuts for easy layups, but UMass junior guard Stefanie Kulesza made life difficult for the Revs on both sides of the ball. In the first half she had 12 points and three steals, and senior guard Alexsia Rose had nine points to keep the game competitive. Disruptive Minutewomen defense contributed to the Revs’ 10 first half turnovers, but GW was able to limit the amount of points UMass had off those turnovers to five.
Several times GW went into a full court press off a made basket, and had success turning UMass over a few times. A key part of this was Taiwo, who came up with multiple steals from the press. In the first half she did what she does best, battling in the post and pulling down eight rebounds to go with four points, three steals, and two drawn charges.
“It always feels good when the press works, when we execute the press,” Taiwo said. “We’ve been working on it more and more, and it changes the pace of the game and throws something else at the other team for them to deal with before coming into their offense.”
Going into halftime GW put together a four point lead and went into the locker room up 29-25.
In the second half UMass quickly tied the game up from good post play by six foot five freshman center Chinenye Odenigbo. Odenigbo and six foot three freshman center Lilly Taulelei made inside scoring opportunities difficult for GW and got open looks on offense to keep UMass in the game.
“Mayowa goes up against tall players all the time, so just great ball pressure, trying to not let them throw those easy passes,” GW head coach Caroline McCombs said. “We didn’t do as good a job digging on the dribbles as we needed to, just didn’t want them to get into a rhythm on the catch. I think we could’ve done a better job with that, and so you can’t give them a deep position.”
For the Revs, freshman guard Sara Lewis put up solid minutes to help GW battle back from down five and go up four with 2:27 left in the third quarter, but a late UMass push tied the game up at 46 going into the last quarter.
In the fourth quarter graduate guard Madison Buford provided an immediate spark off the bench, putting up five straight points in her first minutes of the day to give GW a lead that they would not give up for the rest of the game.
“Maddy [Buford] is a spark for us off the bench,” McCombs said. “She did the same thing at Duquesne, she comes in and as we see what we need over the course of the game, we needed to put the ball in the basket a little more and she’s able to do that in a couple of the actions we were looking at offensively.”
Down the stretch McCombs’ lineup choices were interesting because of how different they have been from the rest of the season. Until later in the quarter Sims and Roberston were both out, but the players on the court did their job to hold the lead and force UMass misses.
“I just thought we had gotten into a rhythm there,” McCombs said. “We were kind of doing some actions for Kamari and Maddy [Buford] we got in there early in the fourth, so we just kind of stayed with what was working.”
Once Sims went back in, she contributed a couple more points, including the game sealing free throw with nine seconds left. She set a new career high with 16 points.
“Getting work in outside of practice, and honestly my teammates trusting me, my coaches trusting in me to come in this late in the season and be able to get on the court and produce,” Sims said of what has allowed her to step up and be such a big piece of the team late in the season. “I just feel like they give me a lot of confidence to get out there and do what I do, but it’s also putting in work off the court and in practice.”
In the final seconds of the game, Taiwo grabbed her 20th rebound of the night, giving her a career high and an even 1,000 for her career. As one of the most talented players GW has seen in recent years, including being GW’s third all-time rebounder, reaching that milestone is a testament to her consistency and leadership.
“I was really wanting that last one because I knew it would get me to 20, I didn’t know it was going to put me over the 1,000 career mark,” Taiwo said. “It just felt like a full circle to get that mark.”
GW will play their next game on Wednesday at Davidson, which can be streamed on ESPN+.
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