ERIE, Pennsylvania - "This was perhaps the worst matchup for us - it may be the worst matchup for anyone in this region. They play so much differently than anyone else. When they're subbing every minute or two minutes, it's hard to play man defense because you're trying to figure out who has who. My hat's off to Glenville State."Shaw University women's head basketball coach Jacques Curtis and his Lady Bears found themselves facing a unique brand of play, and failed to contain Glenville State as their season came to an end with a 111-86 loss to the Lady Pioneers in the opening round of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Friday afternoon at the Hammermill Center on the campus of Gannon University.
The Lady Pioneers play a fast-based style of offense where they often pull up just outside the three-point line in the early seconds of each possession and put up a shot. Of GSC's 82 shots in the game, 51 came from beyond the arc. They set an NCAA Division II tournament record by hitting 21 of those attempts.
"That's their style of play," said Curtis. "They're 'on' a lot - it's not like they're cold-hot. We were going to try and control the number of threes they got up. We were trying to hold them to 30 attempts and we weren't able to do that." Curtis continued, "They had good tempo going. We only had moments when we had the tempo to what we wanted it. We wanted to kind of pound the ball inside a lot - that's our style of play. The majority of the game was their style of play."
Combined with a full-court press and wholesale five-women substitutions at nearly every clock stoppage, they work to wear down opponents. Shaw, down to only ten players, wore down as the second half continued.
"They trap and press and get after you," said Curtis. "That's how they get the turnovers. A lot of that was us, but some of it was them. We just didn't take care of the ball. My backcourt was depleted and Diamond Mitchell, my point guard, wound up playing for 40 minutes. With the tempo they had, they wore her down eventually. She did a good job having to play for 40 minutes at that tempo."
Shaw tried to counter the perimeter game by pushing the ball inside, getting 58 points in the paint and outrebounding GSC 47-41. Glenville State had only 24 points in the paint. "That's our game," said Curtis. "We wanted to get the ball inside. That's our strength. That's what got us this far. That's what got us where we were last year. We had too many turnovers, gave up too many threes. We feel if we could have controlled the tempo more and limited the turnovers, we might have had a chance."
In all, the Lady Bears outshot Glenville State, hitting 32 of their 66 shots for a 48.5 percentage rate. The Lady Pioneers hit 36 of their 82 attempts, for 43.9 percent, but hit those record-breaking 21 threes for the difference. Shaw took only four shots from beyond the arc, hitting one. The hot shooting for the Lady Pioneers continued at the free throw line where they were 18 for 18. In contrast, Shaw went 21 for 31 from the charity stripe.
The full-court press by Glenville State forced 30 Shaw turnovers - the second highest turnover total for the Lady Bears this season. In contrast, GSC turned the ball over 20 times. With the loss, Shaw - the number three seed in the region - finishes their season 25-5.
The sixth seed, Glenville State improves to 27-3 on the season and now awaits the winner of the California (PA) and Edinboro (PA) matchup.
The Lady Bears jumped to an early 7-2 lead when Adana David sank a free throw to complete a three-point play with 17:30 left in the first. With 15:57 left in the half, Mitchell hit a pair of free throws to give Shaw an 11-8 lead. Eleven seconds later, Kenyall Goodson hit a three to tie the score and begin an 18-2 run that culminated in a three by Jessica Parsons with 10:58 showing on the clock. The run gave Glenville State a 29-13 lead.
Shaw then spent the rest of the half cutting into the lead, only to see GSC hit critical threes at key moments to once again extend the lead. With 7:51 left in the half, Diamond Mitchell hit a bucket to trim the GSC lead to 35-23. Ashleigh Fossett answered with a three for the Lady Pioneers to take the lead back to 15.
Two minutes later, Crystal Harris hit a pair of free throws to cut the Glenville State lead to 10, but the Lady Pioneers answered with eight straight, closing with a pair of free throws from Simmons with 4:30 left to give GSC an 18-point lead. They extended their lead to 19 on a layup from Briauna Nix with 3:30 left, but the Lady Bears scored eight straight, culminating in a layup by Isayra Diaz and a conversion of the three-point play to trim the lead to 50-39.
After five straight points by GSC, the Lady Bears closed the half on a 6-0 run on a buzzer beating layup that cut the Glenville State lead to ten, 55-45.
The Lady Bears found their legs in the opening minutes of the second half. After hitting the opening bucket of the half to trim the Glenville State lead to eight, Shaw did allow the Lady Pioneers a 6-1 run that gave them a 61-48 lead with 18:06 left in the game. Shaw answered with six points of their own, including two buckets in the lane from Harris and another by Adana David.
With 16:35 left, David's layup trimmed the GSC lead to 61-54. The two teams exchanged buckets for the next four minutes, but Shaw could never get closer than seven. With 12:25 left, Taylor Dalrymple hit a short jumper in the lane to again put the margin at seven, 68-61 in favor of Glenville State. Ginny Mills then hit a three for GSC that started a 15-5 run that put the Lady Pioneer lead to 17. Dalrymple hit a layup to stop the bleeding, but GSC answered with four straight.
The Lady Bears had one last run in them. Fueled by four points from David, Shaw scored six straight to put the lead at 13, but the Lady Pioneers scored five straight on the way to a 13-2 run that lifted the lead to 24 as GSC hit the century mark on Goodson's three. With 4:40 left, that three gave Glenville State the 100-76 advantage. Shaw did not cut the lead to under 20 the rest of the way and finished with the 111-86 loss.
Five Lady Bears hit double digits with Harris leading the way with 16. She added ten rebounds for a double-double. Diaz and Dalrymple finished with 14 each while David added 13 and Wilson added ten. Diamond Mitchell - who played all 40 minutes of the contest - finished with six assists to lead Shaw.
The Lady Pioneers had five players in double digits as well, led by Goodson with 24 points on eight three pointers. Mills added 20 points. Fossett had 13 while Nix and Simmons added 12 each. Jelena Elez had a game-high ten assists.
COURTESY SHAW UNIVERSITY SPORTS INFORMATION
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