The University of Memphis women’s basketball team was able to keep it close throughout the first half, but poor shooting caught up with the Tigers as the No. 2 Connecticut Huskies (22-1, 12-0 AAC) came away with an 80-34 victory at FedExForum Saturday.
The Tigers (11-12, 5-7 AAC) stayed in the game in the first half due in large part to their defense, holding the Huskies to 29 percent from the floor in the opening period.
Offensively Memphis struggled to find ways to score against UConn’s length, and was frequently forced to hoist up contested looks late in the shot clock. The Tigers shot only 25 percent in the first half, and were unable to convert on a single three-pointer in 10 attempts.
“There’s no question (UConn’s length made things difficult),” Memphis coach Melissa McFerrin said. “We were running our offense to try to get a good look, but then we didn’t want to take a bad shot so we were pulling it back out and running a secondary set knowing that if we got a bad shot we wanted it to be late in the shot clock rather than early.”
Memphis trailed by 12 at the end of the first half, and right out of the halftime break UConn slammed the door on any remaining hopes of an upset right with a 9-0 run in the first three minutes of the second period, extending the Husky lead to 21. After a strong first half the Tigers defense fell apart in the second, with UConn shooting 61 percent after the half.
Junior guard Ariel Hearn led Memphis with 13 points, but shot 5-23 from the field and 1-9 from beyond the arc. Sophomore Mooriah Rowser had a similar stat line, with 10 points on 4-16 shooting. The shooting struggles were a common theme, with Memphis shooting 22 percent overall.
The Tigers were also unable to get many points from the charity stripe, shooting only four free throws for the entire game and none until the final three minutes of the contest. The lack of Memphis foul shots was partly due to the Tigers taking a high volume of jump shots, but also because of how sound the Huskies are on the defensive end.
“I think Connecticut’s very disciplined defensively,” McFerrin said. “I think if you go back and look through the box scores over the course of the year there’s not very many people that get to the free throw line against them. That’s something that they do very well. They’re very disciplined and they don’t give away points.”
Memphis is the latest victim in the trail of destruction UConn has made of its American Athletic Conference schedule. The Huskies are 12-0 in conference play, and no opponent has been able to come closer than 34 points — On Feb. 1 Temple lost to UConn 83-49 in a home contest.
With the first of two contests against UConn out of the way the road does get a bit easier from here for the Tigers. Memphis’ next two games come on the road at Houston and at home against Central Florida. Both teams sit near the bottom of the AAC standings, and provide the seventh-place Tigers with an opportunity to make up some ground.
Memphis will face Houston Feb. 11 at the Hofheinz Pavilion. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.
