The Marquette women’s basketball team snapped a four-game losing streak by going back to basics Saturday night in a 72-48 victory over Pittsburgh. The win allowed them to regain the confidence coach Terri Mitchell said they had lacked during their skid.
“We had been struggling, and I thought we had a confidence hangover,” Mitchell said. “As a coach you know what your team is capable of doing, and you have to keep pulling it out of them. One win doesn’t resolve everything, but I saw their enthusiasm and excitement on the bench even when we hit droughts.”
Marquette was finally able to get all of its pieces working in unison, using its height advantage to open things up for its perimeter shooting. It all started with a 17-7 run as sophomore forward Katherine Plouffe scored four field goals in the paint off feeds from sophomore guard Gabi Minix and junior forward Sarina Simmons. Plouffe went on to have a huge first half picking up 16 points and five rebounds before the buzzer.
“Our focus was to post big and allow our wings to run and get paint touches while also letting our guards attack the paint,” Plouffe said. “We were able to do that, and it really opened things up in the second half for the shooters.”
Down 11 points and with the threat of Plouffe established, the Panthers started to collapse on defense, a situation that the Golden Eagles often capitalize on. This time, it was freshman guard Arlesia Morse who caught fire, going three of four from beyond the arc and finishing the game with 24 points to put Pittsburgh away.
“Our post players were playing so well that everyone was sucking in,” Morse said. “Katherine was able to kick back out to me to get the open shots, and whenever I wasn’t open I could get right back into the post.”
Last week Mitchell had said that in order to break out of their funk the Golden Eagles had to stop putting the weight of the game on Plouffe’s shoulders. For the first time in four games, Plouffe’s performance was outdone by an outside shooter as the offense flowed inside and out.
“The big thing that was glaring was our shot selection,” Mitchell said. “When you look at our losses we shot too many threes, and they were hurried threes. In our wins, our three point shooting is high, it’s more selective, and we let it come to us because we’re going inside-outside and not shooting threes off the first pass.”
Even more important was the return of Marquette’s transition game as the Golden Eagles held an 18-2 advantage in fast-break points. In a game where Marquette gave the ball away a total of 24 times and held only an 18-17 advantage in points off turnovers, the Golden Eagles mastery at running the floor tipped the scale in their favor.
“It’s been a lot of people’s strategy to key on Gabi (Minix), and we knew we had to get other people involved in pushing the ball,” Mitchell said. “We had to get back to who we are with less sets and more transition, and I thought we had gotten a little tentative in the last few games with our transition game.”
Mitchell said that beyond anything she wanted her teams enthusiasm to remain constant throughout the rest of the year and that with it the Golden Eagles could still make a splash in the Big East moving forward.
“They kept up the excitement and energy and never hung their heads,” Mitchell said. “That’s what winners do. They are consistent in their effort and don’t let the scoreboard dictate their effort.”
