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DETROIT – IUPUI women's basketball came up just short against Wright State in the 2019 Horizon League Little Caesars Women's Basketball Championship, falling to the Raiders in the semifinals, 60-51.
The Jags got in to an early hole but used a strong performance out of the halftime break to almost pull the upset bid over the No. 1 seed in the tournament.
"First off congratulations to Wright State, I think [head coach] Katrina [Merriweather] has done a great job," said head coach
Austin Parkinson. "Our Achilles heel all year long has been our offense, we have had three or four games this year where we just don't make shots and it puts a lot of heat on your defense."
Trailing by 12 at the break, IUPUI quickly cut in to the Wright State lead with a 5-0 run to start the quarter.
Macee Williams hit two free throws and
Katelyn O'Reilly hit a three before Wright State scored its first basket of the second half. A three from
Holly Hoopingarner cut the lead to six but Wright State responded with a six-straight point to push the lead back to 12 with 4:12 left to play in the quarter.
With the game looking like it could get out of hand, IUPUI began a run with a free-throw from Sims. After missing the second free throw, IUPUI got the rebound and
Sydney Hall hit a three to cut the lead to eight. The three gave Hall her 1,000th career-point, making her the 25th Jaguar to hit that mark.
Hall wasn't done, hitting another three to bring IUPUI within five. A minute later, Sims was back on the line and hit both free throws and after a block by Sims and a steal and layup by O'Reilly, IUPUI ended the quarter on an 11-0 run to get within one at 38-37 heading in to the final quarter.
Wright State opened the quarter with a bucket but Sims answered with a layup to again cut the deficit to one point. The Raiders answered with a 5-0 run and after a layup with 4:42 left in the game, had pushed the lead back to 10.
Hoopingarner hit a three and Sims made a layup to get within five but two free throws again kept the Jags at bay. With three minutes left, Hall hit another three to get the Jags within four at 55-51 but the Jags could not come up with the offensive rebound after a missed three and a layup made it a two-possession game again.
After a missed three by the Jags, IUPUI had to play the foul game and Wright State iced the game from the line, hitting three free throws.
IUPUI was led on the night by Hall, who finished the game with 12 points and Hoopingarner was the other Jags to finish in double-figures with 10. For the game, IUPUI managed to hit just 29 percent of its field goals (18-for-62) and was 9-for-33 from behind the arc. Williams was held to eight points on 3-for-14 shooting.
The Jags shot especially poor in the first half, hitting just 20 percent (6-for-30) in first 20 minutes as IUPUI fell behind 28-16 at the break. In the first quarter, IUPUI managed just seven points with
Sydney Roule the only Jaguar to make a shot from the field, hitting two threes. The other point came off of an O'Reilly free throw.
IUPUI found itself down 8-1 early before Roule was brought in to the game and hit the two threes and IUPUI finished the quarter down five.
For the first time nine games, IUPUI was outrebounded, losing the battle 45-37. The last time IUPUI was outrebounded was the last time IUPUI played Wright State in a 59-66 loss to the Raiders in Dayton.
The comeback coincided with IUPUI taking care of the ball. The Jags committed seven first quarter turnovers but gave the ball away just six times the rest of the game. IUPIU forced 13 turnovers and held a 13-6 advantage in points off of turnovers.
IUPUI had a hard time stopping Wright State freshman Angel Baker, who finished with 14 points off the bench helping the Raiders to a 25-6 bench point advantage.
UP NEXT
IUPUI will hope postseason play comes calling for the 20-11 Jaguars but will have to wait until Monday (Mar. 18) when the Women's NIT bracket will be announced.
