Evansville is 4-2, Miami 2-3. All Time the series is 2-2, with the home team winning each game. The Purple Aces have two girls scoring over 20 ppg. 6-1 center Abby Feit averages 21 ppg and 9.7 ppg. 5-8 Jr G Ja’Naiya Davis averages 20.7 ppg.
W Austin Peay home 62-52
W Oakland City home 100-59
W Eastern Kentucky home 67-57
L Eastern Illinois away 74-85
W IPFW away 87-71
L Murray State home 77-89
Feit positions herself well and uses her head. She will probably take advantage of our big girls as those are weak areas for us. Evansville is also 29th in the country in forcing turnovers, which is our biggest weakness.
Miami is led by Peyton Scott at 19.6 ppg and Ivy Wolf at 11.1 ppg. Last game both Katie Davidson with 14 and Edyn Battle with 10 scored in double digits for the first time this season.
It was an odd game, took forever for the first score but we ended up with a good offensive day overall. We struggle with one on one matchups defensively, thought the possessions where we played zone looked good - perhaps that can continue to develop.
Evansville pressed up the entire game and we had 25 turnover ( 8 by Scott and 4 by Wolf, our two best ballhandlers) but the tempo of the game helped us and we forced 20 turnovers by Evansville. With that tempo if allowed Scott to have the ball a lot, much different than our two straight losses where the other team tried everything to keep the ball out of her hands. Also, our bigs did a surprisingly good job against Evansville star Abby Fite, as she was 5 out of 18 from the floor. We only had one moving screen called, which was a big improvement. Scott did put up huge numbers with 25 points and 12 rebounds ( 5-7 guard) and 6 assists. Get the ball into her hands every time you can.
Special mention to Jada Duckett who primarily guarded Fite, plus she was 6 for 8 from the floor and had 9 rebounds. Also, true freshman Katie Richaison played only 6 minutes but had 6 points and 3 rebounds and was 3 for 3 from the floor.
All in all, we looked much better than the two previous games and evened our record at 3-3. We can match last year’s 4 wins Sunday vs Eastern Kentucky.
I watched the replay today. True freshman Maddie Cluse had her best all around game. She has been starting all year and has a nice all around game. She can play either forward spot.