At times it looked promising, but at the end of the game when the clock struck triple zeroes, the Massachusetts women’s basketball became victims of its 14th straight defeat.
UMass played some of its best basketball during the first 20 minutes of play, but the Bonnies ran away in the second half with a 88-66 win over the Minutewomen.
“It’s just a game of runs,” UMass coach Sharon Dawley said. “We made a decent comeback, but we came up short getting back in the game for real by not being able to secure the entire 30 second shot clock.”
UMass (3-21, 0-10 Atlantic 10) was strong defensively early in the shot clock. However, once St. Bonaventure’s guards penetrated, the Minutewomen would collapse in, leaving wide-open shots from the outside.
St. Bonaventure (19-6, 8-2 A-10) hit 10 3-pointers as a team, including five in the first half from Chelsea Bowker. Bowker finished the game with 18 points, shooting 6-for-10 from behind the arc. Nyla Rueter also chipped with four 3-pointers, scoring a career and game high 27 points.
“(Bowker was) basically why (St. Bonaventure) had the lead (in the first half),” Dawley said. “There was one point in the first half where she had 15 points and UMass had 15 points. … We just have to stick to the (scouting report, because) we know that was all she was going to do.”
Down 27 with 3:47 left, Kim Pierre-Louis grabbed an offensive rebound, fought through the contact and converted the traditional 3-point play. Despite the large deficit, Pierre-Louis let out a loud scream and beat her chest a few times, sending a message to the rest of her teammates that she was going to fight until the end.
“At the end of the game frustration came, and I wanted to get one just to stick it to them,” Pierre-Louis said. “I got that one and it just really fired me up.”
Pierre-Louis has every right to be fired up after scoring a career high 26 points. The center shot 11-for-21 from the field and came up one rebound shy of a double-double. Although Pierre-Louis starts the game from the bench, she played a team-high 30 minutes and was by far the Minutewomen’s most productive player.
“When it comes to Kim, I don’t see many teams that have an answer,” Dawley said. “We’ve been struggling with our outside shooting so we have to be able to drive more and score from the block.”
UMass struggled shooting from the outside, going just 2-for-7 from behind the 3-point line. Both 3s came from Kiara Bomben, who made both of them in the first half. The seven 3-pointers attempted Saturday tie a season low for the Minutewomen.
Jasmine Harris scored 10 points on just 4-for-12 shooting, marking her sixth consecutive game scoring in double figures. Harris forced many of her shots early into possessions and struggled to get anything going offensively.
“Our defense was so much better (Saturday) and I’m encouraged by that, but we did have lapses,” Dawley said. “You take away some of those lapses and we will defend real well on Wednesday.”
The Minutewomen return to action on Wednesday at George Mason, which is also winless in conference play.
Andrew Cyr can be reached at [email protected], and can be followed on Twitter @Andrew_Cyr.
