Last Wednesday, the UT women’s basketball team was defeated by the Miami RedHawks 72-54 in the MAC quarterfinal at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Fourth-year Kaayla McIntyre was the leading scorer for the Rockets with 14 points scored.
No. 3 seed Miami (23-7) shot 27-of-51 (52.9 percent) from the field, including 7-of-17 from the three-point line. The guard duo of third-years Lauren Dickerson (21) and Leah Purvis (13) combined for 34 points.
“What makes Miami so difficult to guard is that there [are] a lot of kids that can put up a lot of points on their team,” Toledo head coach Tricia Cullop said. “Dickerson gets a lot of the pub because she is usually putting up the bigger numbers. Purvis is a fantastic player. I thought we did a good job of stopping the pick and pop with [Kendall] McCoy because she hurt us in the first two games. .”
No. 6 seed Toledo (20-11) shot 19-of-56 (33.9 percent) from the floor. Second-year Nakiah Black registered 12 points as fourth-year guard Mikaela Boyd added nine points, eight rebounds and four assists. Miami started out fast, hitting four of its first five shots to take a 10-2 lead. Purvis drained a pair of three-pointers and a layup in the run.
Toledo fought back, cutting the lead to 14-9 on a deep two-pointer by Black at the 3:34 mark.
Miami was up, 18-9, before McIntyre hit a layup at the buzzer to trim the MU lead to 18-11 at the quarter break.
Boyd made a three-point play and McIntyre hit back-to-back layups to cut Miami’s lead to 20-18.
Miami’s Baleigh Reid knocked down a put-back at the buzzer to give the RedHawks a 35-24 halftime advantage.
After Miami increased its lead to 39-26 early in the quarter, Toledo went on a 6-0 surge. Third-year Sara Rokkanen’s three-pointer with 5:52 left trimmed the lead to 39-32 and forced the RedHawks to call a timeout.
A pair of three-pointers by MU’s Dickerson pushed the RedHawk lead to 49-35 with 2:33 left in the quarter. Moments later, Dickerson hit a pull-up jumper off a turnover to make the score 52-35 and force UT to call a timeout.
Rokkanen hit a layup at the buzzer to trim the lead to 52-39 at the end of three quarters.
A three-pointer from Black cut the lead to 59-46 with 4:38 left, but Dickerson answered with a triple of her own.
“Early on, we got out to a slow start,” Boyd said. “They got out on us with a bunch of points. It was tough to come from behind but once we hit the second quarter, we kind of got back into it. We missed some defensive assignments, so that was tough to come back from. .”
The Rockets’ season is not over as they will face off against Seton Hall in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament at 7 p.m. Mar. 21 in Savage Arena.
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