Temple women’s basketball (13-9, 5-4 The American Athletic Conference) lost against Wichita State (13-10, 5-5 The AAC) for the second time this season, falling 85-75 at McGonigle Hall on Wednesday night. Temple fell earlier this season to the Shockers in Wichita on Jan. 19.
The Shockers shot 55.6 percent on three-point shots and 50.8 percent overall, which was too much for Temple’s offensive effort to counteract. Temple shot 33.3 percent from beyond the arc.
“Our body language was not of a team that was upset that we lost at their place,” coach Tonya Cardoza said. “I felt like our energy level, how committed we were on the defensive side… I just felt like we didn’t have that tonight. Like I’ve said all year, when we’re making shots, everything is great. When we’re not making shots, we don’t bear down and focus on the defensive side.”
Wichita State averaged just 62.3 points per game and 39 percent on field goals heading into McGonigle Hall. Their field goal percentage was ranked 216th out of the 348 NCAA teams.
Another issue for Temple was the number of turnovers they gave up, Mackins said. Temple had 20 turnovers to Wichita State’s 15. Temple has averaged 14.9 turnovers per game this season.
“We turned the ball over too many times,” Mackins said. “We couldn’t take care of the ball, which is why they had 34 points off turnovers. That’s just unacceptable. We can’t turn over the ball that many times.”
Redshirt-sophomore guard Ashley Jones echoed that same sentiment regarding turnovers.
“As point guards, we should not have had that many turnovers put together,” Jones said. “That should never happen in any game, no matter what.”
Jones was the team’s leading scorer, accruing 24 points on 47.1 percent shooting overall. Jones and Mackins combined to score 42 of the team’s 75 points.
Junior forward Mia Davis had a relatively light contribution, scoring nine points on 50 percent shooting and adding eight rebounds in 39 minutes. Those nine points were well short of her season average of 19.5. In the game at Wichita State earlier this season, Davis had 23 points and 15 rebounds.
Temple had a significant size advantage as Davis, sophomore forward Alexa Williamson and graduate forward Lena Niang are all taller than the five Shockers who played more than 20 minutes.
“There were mismatches all over the place that we didn’t take advantage of in the post,” Cardoza said. “They obviously felt like they could take advantage of us and they did. A lot of our issues tonight just boiled down to pride.”
The Owls will travel down to Tampa for their next match against South Florida (13-9, 5-3 The AAC) on Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m.
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