SEATTLE — Tia Jackson and her Washington women’s basketball team took the glass-half-full approach after Sunday’s loss.
Sure the Huskies lost a third straight game in blowout fashion, but at least they finished strong against 19th-ranked Ohio State.
Of course, all that the Hec Edmundson Pavilion scoreboard showed at the end of the game was a 71-54 drubbing, but despite falling to 4-7, Jackson and her players had at least some reasons to smile.
After being outscored 45-21 in the first half, Washington responded by outscoring the Buckeyes 33-26 in the second half. The Huskies went from shooting 26.5 percent in the first half to 53.3 percent in the second. After an atrocious display of rebounding in the first half — Ohio State out-rebounded Washington 28-14 — the Huskies closed the gap in the second half, when the Buckeyes held just a 15-12 advantage.
“There were two games tonight,” said Jackson. “There was a first half and a second half. The Huskies played the second half, and I don’t know who it was the first half, honestly. I mean, that’s the way we want to play, that’s the way we should have been playing. And the result of that is we win the second half by seven. It was awesome. I was proud at least we went out on a good note, but definitely not excited about the way we started the game.”
Then again, the Buckeyes felt that the Huskies strong second-half had as much to do with their own poor effort as it did with improved play on Washington’s part.
“We have some talented players who just have to learn what a 40-minutes, every-possession game is despite the score,” said Ohio State coach Jim Foster. “In modern basketball, leads can disappear quickly.”
The Huskies actually started the game well, despite what the first-half totals might have shown. They led for most of the first seven minutes, but once Ohio State got on a roll, the Huskies were helpless to stop the Buckeyes.
Thanks in large part to their rebounding superiority, the Buckeyes outscored the Huskies 33-8 in the last 13:42 of half. And no matter how improved Washington’s play was in the second half, it was not nearly enough to erase a deficit that grew as large as 27 points.
Much of Ohio State’s first-half damage came from senior guard Marscilla Packer, who made four of her seven three-point attempts to score 14 of her game-high 18 points in the half.
Packer was one of four Buckeyes to score in double figures along with Jantel Lavender (14), Ashlee Trebilcock (10) and Star Allen (10).
Trailing big and unhappy with what she was seeing, Jackson mixed things up early in the second half. With 17:28 left in the game, she pulled her five starters — Emily Florence, Heidi McNeill, Sami Whitcomb, Katelan Redmon and Andrea Plouffe — all at once in a hockey-like manner. The second line of Sara Mosiman, Jess McCormack, Michelle Augustavo, Sarah Morton and Laura McLellan seemed to provide a spark.
“I looked over there and I was like, ‘Everybody’s coming out?” Florence said. “I think it sparked us seeing them come out there with all that energy.”
In the end however, a second half turnaround and the return of Plouffe from Achilles tendinitis was not enough to avoid another blowout. It was enough, however, to at least take some of the sting out of the loss.
“We have momentum so that second half brought us up a little bit,” said Redmon, who led the Huskies with 11 points. “It gives us something to look forward to for the Purdue game.”
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesblog
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