By Liam O’Murchu (@Liam_0__)
Women’s basketball was once again plagued by offensive struggles in a 66-56 loss to St. Louis on Saturday afternoon.
The Revolutionaries (8-10, 1-5 A10) got an efficient performance from graduate students Nya Lok (19 points, five rebounds, 6-for-12 FG, 3-for-6 3P) and Mayowa Taiwo (13 points, 11 rebounds, 6-for-13 FG) but it wasn’t enough to overcome a Billikens (8-12, 3-4 A10) team who made the NCAA tournament last season and saw two players score 20+ points.
“It was just a slow start for us.” GW head coach Caroline McCombs said. “It’s really hard to dig ourselves a hole and have to battle back. I think we did that in the third quarter. Still, when you’re down that much it’s a hard fight to get over the top.”
GW wanted to get the ball down low early and often, with Taiwo starting 2-for-2 and graduate guard Essence Brown getting in on the action with some early scoring as well. The Revs only trailed 9-8 at the first media timeout. But SLU quickly pulled away with a 10-2 run in the second half of the quarter as the shots stopped falling for GW. Senior forward Peyton Kennedy was the star of the show early for the Billikens, pouring in 11 points in the opening stanza to outscore GW on her own.
The offensive struggles continued into the second quarter, in which GW shot only 5-for-21 from the field. This allowed the SLU lead to balloon to 33-15 with 4:45 remaining in the second. A team like GW simply doesn’t have the offensive firepower to make up a deficit that big, especially when missing open layups and good looks like they were. However, the Revs still had 24+ minutes to turn it around.
Notably quiet offensively was sophomore guard Nya Robertson, who led GW and sat second in the A10 in scoring coming into the game with 17.5 points per game. At halftime, last year’s A10 Sixth Woman of the Year had taken only three shots, none of which had gone in. SLU prevented her from getting the ball early on and when the ball isn’t in her hands, GW’s offense looks much different.
“We tried to get her on different parts of the floor to start [a possession].” McCombs said. “And usually within a whole possession — not that they forget — but the intensity of the deny usually wears off a little bit. So we just tried to get her moving and cutting and doing some different things to eventually get the ball back within our flow of the offense.”
By halftime, SLU led 37-22 and Kennedy had pushed her total to 14 points, supplemented by 11 from graduate guard Kyla McMakin. GW was 9-for-35 from the field, while SLU was 13-for-23. The Billikens got to the line at will (12-2 advantage in FT attempted), moved the ball better (10-5 assists advantage) and was more active on the glass (22-13 rebounding advantage). It should go without saying that it is difficult to win a basketball game when you are being outplayed in as many facets as the Revs were in the first half.
“The effort needed to be better.” McCombs said. “There’s no way that we’re not getting back in transition, we’re not sprinting, they’re getting easy layups. Just things that are uncharacteristically happening that can’t happen to win a ball game at home.”
But the Revs came out firing in the third quarter, immediately going on a 10-2 run to pull within 39-32 when the Billikens took a timeout with 7:35 left in the quarter. After only two points in the first half, Lok tripled that number in the first 1:30 of the second half alone.
SLU allowed GW to hang around with their inability to take care of the basketball. At the end of the third quarter, the Billikens led 52-41 and had 16 turnovers. If the Revs wanted to pull off a come-from-behind victory they’d need to avoid cold stretches offensively and stay locked in on defense.
But as has been the case all year, GW was unable to keep up offensively and the Billikens were able to pull away. The importance of Robertson to GW’s success was evident, as she finished with only four points on 1-for-6 shooting from the field. The Revs are 0-3 against D1 opponents this season when she scores fewer than 10 points.
Despite their slow start to conference play, St. Louis showed why they can be a threat in the A10. McMakin finished with 21 points and Kennedy finished with 20, while graduate guard Julia Martinez dazzled with nine assists to go with five rebounds and four steals (although I must note that she had four turnovers).
“A key to the game was Peyton Kennedy.” McCombs said. “We knew when she scores 19 and above, they win those ball games. She can’t get open threes and she can’t get good layups. They did a really good job back cutting today. I thought they got a lot of back cuts on us and we can’t lose our man and be too high where people cut behind us because [Martinez] is going to find them for easy baskets.”
For GW, their lackluster start to conference play is becoming a concern and their season is headed in the wrong direction. For a team that returned virtually everyone from a 7th place finish, the expectation was this team would compete for a double-bye in the Atlantic 10 tournament. But right now they look closer to a bottom four team in the league than a top four one. The Revs scoring offense, field goal percentage, and assist/turnover ratio are all the second worst in the league with very little indications of meaningful changes.
“We try our best not to focus on the outcome.” Lok said. “That’s just where we’re at at the moment. Adversity has hit. But how’s that response to get back to where we know we can be as GW? So it’s just about getting back into practice and making sure we stick with what GW does.”
Next up for the Revs is a big test against a George Mason team that’s surprised many across the league with a 13-3 overall record and a 4-1 record to start conference play. Tip-off is at noon on Wednesday, as this is GW’s field trip game, meaning the stands will be packed with screaming schoolchildren. If you haven’t been to a field trip game, this is a great opportunity to do so. It’s a unique college basketball experience and I can’t recommend it enough. If you can’t make it, the game will be streamed on ESPN+ and WRGW.
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