Photo by: Andrew Fielding
After hitting the cruise control button and thumping their final six opponents regular season by 20 points or more, the DU Women’s basketball team returns to action against an opponent they know will give them a battle.
And that’s a good thing.
The Pioneers will take on Western Kentucky for the second time this season at 12:15 p.m. tomorrow at the Convention Center in Hot Springs, Ark.
“In my three years here, I think we had only three games which we won by 20-points or more, so that stretch was something unfamiliar for me,” said head coach Erik Johnson earlier this week. “We have been a close game team as long as I’ve been here, winning games by one, two or three points has been our specialty.”
One of those trademark close victories came early this season on Jan. 5, when the Pioneers came from behind to edge WKU 51-50 at the E.A. Diddle Arena, the program’s first road victory against WKU.
Denver (19-10, 11-5) trailed by 10 points with 5:03 remaining, and was without senior guard Britteni Rice who suffered a head injury earlier in the game, yet a layup from Kaetlyn Murdoch with 12 seconds remaining propelled the team to victory as they earned their first conference win of the season.
“We got the late basket from Kaetlyn and we had to survive it on the last possession,” said Johnson. “It was a very hard fought battle, and tomorrow’s game will be another hard fought battle for us.”
As for the Hilltoppers (13-16, 10-7), the team is coming off a 81-66 win against North Texas in the Sun Belt Conference tournament’s first round.
WKU senior point guard Amy McNear proved to be the difference in the contest, scoring 25 points and dishing out six assists, while grabbing five rebounds
“Amy is our point guard and we need to have that focus from her, because she is so creative in how she distributes the ball and executes the offense,” said head coach Mary Taylor Cowles. “She had a really great offensive game and was really composed, which is something that she will need to have the rest of the way.”
McNear could prove to be the difference maker in tomorrow’s contest as she will challenge sophomore point guard Emiko Smith.
“Amy McNear had a phenomenal game for them, they are a great low-post team with dominant post players, but containing her will be a point of emphasis for us,” said Johnson.
Cowles remembers the contest earlier in the year against DU, insisting her team did a lot of things positively in the contest, but suffered from crucial mistakes down the stretch, including a costly turnover that led to Murdoch’s game-winning layup.
“Hopefully we can correct those mistakes and build off of what we did right that night,” said Cowles. “We need to come ready to play and bring the focus we had today, because Denver’s a really talented team and the reason why they are so good is the fact they are so disciplined.”
The question going into tomorrow’s game is whether or not the six-game win streak hindered the Pioneers ability to play well in a close game situation.
Johnson doesn’t think so.
“We kept our edge during that streak, and that showed because we were able to keep opponents down and not let them back into it,” Johnson said of the team’s winning streak.
Denver enters the contest as the No. 1 team in the SBC in field goal percentage, assists, three-point percentage and blocked shots.
Despite leading the conference in shooting, Johnson knows it will come down to only a few possessions.
“Most of our games against these top teams are decided by a few possessions, and we’re probably going to see that again tomorrow, ” said Johnson.
