“They wanted it more I guess,” said senior Micaela Thomas, who shot 1-for-9 in a game no Sugar Bear could get it going as the team shot just 33.3 percent. “Some of the people on our team wanted it, but it doesn’t seem like we’re all on the same page right now. Tech outhustled us, they outrebounded us ... they outplayed us. That’s all it was.”
The Golden Suns closed the first half out with an 8-0 run, took a 32-27 lead into the locker room, and never trailed again – outscoring UCA 37-28 in the second half.
“We weren’t ready to play tonight,” Seals said. “We had some breakdowns that we weren’t able to take care of. We needed some longer runs and we didn’t take care of that. We were able to get some looks, we just didn’t make shots. We didn’t do what we needed to do on the offensive end, we didn’t get to the free throw line.”
UCA held Tech’s Christy Mahan (who scored 24 in the last meeting) in check – limiting her to six points – but let Melanie Pierce slice to the basket unimpeded several times, surrendering 27 points in all to the junior forward. Katie McCormick, who shot 6-of-7 and had open looks along the baseline all night, finished with 14 points and Amanda Grappe added 12 points and 10 rebounds.
“Are they a better team? Tonight they were,” Thomas said. “But in every position … no, we don’t ever face a team I think we don’t have them in every position. But if we don’t come to play it doesn’t work. You can’t just say you’re a better team then not show up to play and expect that to work.”
The Sugar Bears, who shot a combined 35 percent (44-of-125) in the two losses, haven’t been in sync since the win
against Christian Brothers on Jan. 30.
“We just couldn’t get comfortable,” Seals said. “Tech did a heck of a job. We’ve got to give them congratulations on the win. They did a good job and executed their game plan. We didn’t have a great shootaround and that’s not a good sign for us, so we tried to get the kids refocused and we knew we had to go back to the drawing board.”
Whatever it was didn’t take too well.
“I really don’t know what to say because I’m still trying to figure out what happened,” Thomas said. “I think a lot of it has to do with focus and we played real panicky the last six, eight minutes. We just weren’t on the same page at all. And, I shot terrible.”
With Henderson State on tap tomorrow night, things don’t get any easier.
“W’ere going to step up and we’re gonna fight,” Seals said. “You’ve got to keep plugging away and keep doing what you always do. I wish I knew the answer. I’ve got a couple speculations, but you’ve got to keep at the drawing board and keep doing what you’re doing.”
Thomas, who didn’t envision coming back to lose a bunch of games, knows it’s important for her team to seize what opportunity they have left and right the ship.
“We’ve got another tone one Thursday and we’ve got to start doing what it takes to win ballgames,” she said. “I was thinking if I could give everybody on the team one piece of advice, it’s that I’ve been in the basketball world and in the real world, and there’s only one chance to do this.
“That’s what I want everybody to see. This season is far from being over and we’ve got to pick up our heads. For four weeks, we’ve got to give it all we’ve got because you don’t ever get a chance to do this again. That’s not just for the seniors – that’s everybody who will be here next year because this is the last time to play for a championship for a while.”
