Tiger women start fast, can't keep up with UGA
Home has been anything but a fortress for Missouri women’s basketball this season.
The Tigers entered Sunday’s game against No. 24 Georgia 0-4 in Southeastern Conference play at Mizzou Arena, a stat that hasn’t helped matters as MU has been languishing in the bottom half of the league standings for most of the season. To make matters worse, star guard Aijha Blackwell was ruled out before the game with a right foot injury, leaving the Tigers without their second-leading scorer and top rebounder.
Still, entering Sunday against ranked SEC foes — with the exception of Thursday’s loss at No. 1 South Carolina, who MU was still tied with at half — Missouri hasn’t been beaten by more than six points and looked more than competitive. But without Blackwell in tow, the home struggles continued and the Bulldogs humbled the Tigers.
Georgia was dominant from the second quarter on in a 82-64 rout of Missouri, with Gabby Connally’s 20 second-half points (29 in total) being one of the Tigers’ main sources of trouble. MU led by as much as 13 with 1:41 left in the first quarter, but from then on it was all Dawgs: Georgia tied the score by halftime, took the lead in the third quarter and never trailed again.
“The most disappointing thing to me is we really challenged our kids … we needed tonight to be our best defensive effort of the season,” Missouri coach Robin Pingeton said. “And I don’t know that we did that very well. We talked a lot about Connally and her ability to shoot the 3 and she got 10 3s off. That’s just too many.”
The 82 points are the most Missouri has allowed all season at home, with 29 Georgia points off of 15 Missouri turnovers proving especially damaging. But things were relatively smooth for the Tigers early on.
Missouri rocketed out to a 19-6 lead on the backs of a 17-2 run in the first quarter, with Ladazhia Williams scoring five points and grabbing six rebounds in the first ten minutes. An 11-2 response run from Georgia out of the second quarter media timeout, however, set the tone for the rest of the game. The teams were tied at 35 going into the locker room.
Dawgs center Jenna Staiti made the third quarter hers, outdueling Williams down low with eight third-quarter points. Staiti finished with 18 in total. With Georgia up nine entering the fourth quarter, Connally took control, scoring 14 in the quarter to put Missouri away for good.
Perhaps what did the Tigers in the most was a brutal 5:53 stretch without a basket to end the third quarter, something Pingeton criticized as she hoped for a better response from her team when things went south.
“We’ve got to be able to have that tougher mentality of when we’re not making shots to be able to come back and get a stop,” Pingeton said. “I just, I didn’t like our stance defensively. I didn’t like our communication. … I feel like we’ve just gotta up the ante.”
Pingeton said it’s unknown when Blackwell will return. After the South Carolina game, Blackwell said to a trainer that her foot was sore but practiced Saturday. But when Blackwell came in for Sunday’s pre-game shootaround, Pingeton said Blackwell “just didn’t feel like she could go on it.”
Missouri’s players definitely missed Blackwell’s presence. The Tigers lost the rebounding battle 38-30 and gave up 14 offensive rebounds, with Williams only securing one board after the first quarter.
“We missed a big rebounding piece tonight,” Williams said. “But her energy on the bench was great. It felt like she was still out there with us.”
Missouri travels to Texas A&M at 7 p.m. Thursday.
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