Coming off a 55-41 opening night win against Montana, the women’s basketball team was dismantled by No. 19 Nebraska on Sunday, losing 64-39.
After recording 21 points and gathering a career-high 16 rebounds in the opener, senior center Vic Macaulay was held to just six points and five rebounds while shooting 3-8 from the floor.
The young Owls were sloppy all game, turning the ball over 22 times. The second half showed some promising signs on the defensive end, however. Temple was able to hold Nebraska to 28 percent shooting following halftime.
“I think a lot of times they just missed some shots,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “I thought we did do some pretty good things defensively, but [Nebraska] is such a great shooting team and their guards do a really good job of putting the ball on the floor and penetrating the gaps and creating the help.”
Freshman guard Erica Covile led Temple with ten points on a 5-6 scoring afternoon. Covile played 28 minutes after playing sparingly in Friday’s game. Sophomore guard Rateska Brown followed up her 13-point performance against Montana with eight points against the Cornhuskers. However, she fouled out of the game with eight minutes remaining after committing a charge.
Nebraska’s blow-out win was backed by junior forward Jordan Hooper’s double-double effort. Hooper recorded 12 points and 14 rebounds on the afternoon.
Cardoza said, considering the teams youth and inexperience, she wasn’t all that surprised in the way the game turned out.
“Last year when the sophomores didn’t [perform well], they were sitting on the bench,” Cardoza said. “[Getting blown out] was good for us, a wake-up call, because I can always use this in practice – ‘remember Nebraska’.”
The Owls, now 1-1 on the new season, play Seton Hall on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Liacouras Center.
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