With the score tied 25-25 at the half of yesterday’s contest against New Hampshire, the Massachusetts women’s basketball team should have just considered it a moral victory and gone home.
After all, the Minutewomen didn’t show up for the second half anyway.
It was not that the Maroon and White played all that well in the first frame, but the second session was absolutely atrocious from start to finish, as it did not even scratch the scoreboard until Jen Butler hit a layup with 13:42 remaining.
By that time, however, the Wildcats already had a lead they would never relinquish, beating up on UMass in all aspects of the game, on their way to a 66-44 victory.
“I thought we quit, and that makes this one of the most disappointing losses I have ever had in my career,” distraught Minutewoman coach Joanie O’Brien said after the game.
“I don’t know if we have a listening problem or what,” the 11th year coach added. “But sometimes we look like we have no idea what we’re doing out there.”
With the loss, the Maroon and White dropped to a woeful 1-8 on the season, while New Hampshire improved to 4-5.
“We’re going to have to do something different,” O’Brien said. “But [my players] have got to decide what they want to do. They have talent and they have potential, but potential is one of those crazy words you don’t like talking about, because they haven’t done anything with it yet.”
Throughout the contest, UMass was making the same mistakes it had struggled with all year – most notably an inability to shoot from the field or from the line, an abundance of turnovers and little to no clutch play while it was still a close game.
Yesterday’s shooting performance was especially hideous, as the Minutewomen shot a lowly eight percent (1-for-13) from three-point range and 46 percent (5-for-11) from the free throw line.
Leading the brick brigade were starting guards Katie Nelson and Ebony Pegues, who managed only two points on 1-for-18 shooting combined while simultaneously committing nine turnovers.
Nelson and Pegues also failed to do much on the defensive end.
“Every time someone made a mistake on defense, and our guards made plenty of mistakes, they made us pay for it,” O’Brien said. “We made very ill-timed plays and we had too many guards take too many poor shots.”
Jen Butler was one of the only bright spots for the Maroon and White, scoring 15 points and hauling down 15 boards, but she once again could not buy a foul shot, as her 3-for-8 performance from the line, sadly enough, actually picked up her season average.
For UNH, guard Heidi Plencner led her team with 17 points on 6-for-8 shooting, including 4-for-6 from behind the arc.
UMass now has two weeks off before traveling down to Philadelphia to compete in the PNC Wildcat Classic.
