Toledo Suffers 73-46 Setback at Atlantic 10 Member Temple

Wednesday, December 10

Philadelphia, PA

7:00 p.m.

University of Toledo

Temple

Toledo Suffers 73-46 Setback at Atlantic 10 Member Temple

12/10/2008 5:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball

PHILADELPHIA, PA ? Toledo suffered a 73-46 setback at Temple in Wednesday's non-conference contest at the Liacouras Center. The Owls held a decisive 56-21 edge on the boards and outscored the Rockets, 36-18, in the paint. With the loss, UT falls to 3-6 on the season.

“I think all the credit has to go to Temple,” Toledo Head Coach Tricia Cullop said. “They possess great athleticism and speed. The tell-tale story of tonight's game was rebounding. Hopefully we learn from this game and improve on it when we get back to practice.”

Junior Tanika Mays led three Rockets in double figures with 14 points. Sophomore Melissa Goodall and freshman Naama Shafir added 10 points each in a losing effort. As a team, UT shot 35.1 percent (20-of-57) from the field, including 7.7 percent (1-of-13) from beyond the arc.

“We had too many silly errors, and many of those I thought were mental,” Cullop said. “We can only get better from this experience. We faced a very good team tonight and they made us pay dearly.”

Shanea Cotton paced the Owls (5-3) with a career-high 23 points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots. Shenita Landry had 13 points with a game-high 12 caroms, Kristen McCarthy contributed 12 points off the bench and LaKeisah Eaddy chipped in 10 points with seven boards. Seven different Temple players finished with at least five rebounds in handing UT its most-lopsided loss of the season. As a unit, TU shot 47.1 percent (31-of-66) from the floor, including 30.8 percent (4-of-13) from three-point land.

The Owls pounded the ball inside early and took advantage of three layups from Cotton to take a 13-8 lead at the 13:31 mark.

Toledo stayed closed with a tough man-to-man defense for a while and forced nine turnovers in the opening 12 minutes to close the margin to 17-15. Unfortunately, the Rockets were only able to translate those early miscues into three points, but they limited the home team to tough looks to the basket to keep it a one-possession contest.

Temple then utilized triples from McCarthy and Eaddy to open up a 25-17 edge at the 4:53 mark and never looked back.

Moments later, TU continued to be strong on the interior and two more Cotton layups made the score 31-21 at the intermission. Temple scored 17 of their points in the paint in the opening period, while Shafir and Mays combined to score 16 of the UT's first-half tallies.

“We played well at the start but toward the end of the half we lost our intensity,” Cullop said.

To start the second period, TU's Cotton registered a pair of three-point plays to push the lead to 45-29 at 13:43.

The Rockets just did not have an answer for Temple's athleticism and made only five field goals in the first 11 minutes of the half and trailed 58-31 with 9:07 left. The closest the Midnight Blue and Gold would get the remainder of the contest was 24 points.

The Rockets will now take the next eight days off to focus on fall semester exams before returning to the hardwood on Friday, Dec. 19 to face Morehead State at home. The opening tip is slated for 7:00 p.m. at Savage Arena.