Veteran Hayley Frank led Mizzou women’s basketball to its second consecutive SEC win Thursday night. The Tigers defeated the Georgia Bulldogs (10-8, 1-4 SEC) 69-57.
Frank led the Tigers in scoring with an impressive 24 points, while shooting 10-18 from the field. She made nine of her ten attempts inside the three-point line. Frank also led the Tigers in assists with five to go with her four rebounds. Mizzou’s second-leading scorer, Ashton Judd, struggled from the field going 2-8 but still managed to finish the game with six points, three rebounds and three assists.
The Tigers entered Thursday’s game with a 10-7 record while being just 1-3 in conference play. After coming off a 65-53 road victory against Vanderbilt, the Tigers earned its first conference win after opening SEC play on a three-game losing streak. Thursday made it two in a row.
With the Tigers win Coach Robin Pingeton believed that this game was viewed like any other despite the opportunity to capture momentum on the season.
“We really want to focus on how we can be today, it's not even if we won two in a row or we lost two in a row," she said. "This group is way too special, I don't want to miss out on anything with them, I want to be where my feet are. Learn and grow and then go to battle every game with them”.
In the first quarter the Tigers rode the hot hand of Frank, who came into the game averaging 16.5 points per game. Frank had an early nine points as Mizzou led 18-12 after the opening ten minutes. Frank finished the first half with 15 points and four assists, shooting 7-12 from the field as Mizzou led 37-26. All five of Frank's misses came from three-point range.
In the third quarter the Bulldogs cut the Tiger lead down to nine for a possession before Mizzou answered with a 8-2 run. Guards Grace Slaughter and Mama Dembele sparked the run with three-pointers. Abby Schreacke put the finishing touches on a big Tiger third quarter with a last second three-pointer. Mizzou led 59-41 entering the fourth.
Dembele, who ranks first in the SEC entering tonight's game with 7.1 assists per game and fourth in the country, moved to fifth in program history in that category. Pingeton says she can't express how proud she is of the growth in Dembele.
“This was the first summer she had been here she'd normally been with her national team," Pingeton said. "It was huge for her with so many new players to be around and to work on her skills. I always saw flashes of Mama in the past, but I think now she's playing at an all-time high. I think she finally has a grasp now of what a quarterback looks like of a team and how to direct traffic. The impact her vibe has on everybody in the locker room, it's fun to see her play with the confidence she has. It's definitely a credit to her”.
Slaughter finished the night with 16 points, four rebounds, and two assists. Slaughter shot 6-10 from the field and a perfect 3-3 from three point range. Slaughter imposed her will inside the paint as well against the Bulldogs, taking advantage of her size against the Georgia guards. Slaughter also believes that this season she has adapted to the collegiate game speed.
“Growing up I was on the shorter side, so I grew up playing point guard," she said. "In middle school and high school I started growing, so I got to develop that back to the basket game. It’s something that is relatively new but something that I do enjoy doing. Starting SEC play this season with a couple of the toughest opponents that we will see this year was definitely good this year for us. I think it's exciting to just keep on growing and learning from every single game.”
The Bulldogs outscored the Tigers in the fourth quarter 16-10 to close the final margin to 12. Mizzou led by as many as 23 points in the fourth quarter. The Mizzou defense smothered the Bulldog offense, forcing Georgia into shooting 19-56 from the field and 2-12 from three. The Tiger offense however shot 53% (28-53) and 38% (8-21) from three. Despite the effective showing on defense, Pingeton still believes there is room for improvement.
“I thought we had some stretches where it was really good and I thought we had some hiccups here and there," she said. "You're not going to play the game perfectly but the importance of being dialed in on personnel and their strengths, and we had maybe a handful of times where we didn't follow personnel or the way we wanted to defend some action, which isn't bad. But when you're trying to do some really special things you have to eliminate those possessions because there's always going to be things that you don't prepare for. But let's control what we do know and be assignment correct.”.
Mizzou heads to Lexington to take on the Kentucky Wildcats (8-10, 1-3 SEC) on Sunday. The Wildcats are currently on a three game losing streak and most recently lost to No.1 South Carolina 98-36.
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