Women's College Basketball
Marriott Cavalier Classic ? Opening Round
#15 Virginia Cavaliers 83, Rider University 38
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.?There was nothing Cavalier about Rider's effort but the Broncs still lost by 45 points. Despite 14 points from junior Amanda Sepulveda (Perth Amboy/Hun), the Rider University women's basketball team was defeated by the 15th ranked Virginia Cavaliers on Sunday afternoon in the opening round of the Marriott Cavalier Classic at John Paul Jones Arena.
Sepulveda made four three-point field goals, one off her career-high with a career-high 12 attempts from long range.
“Amanda played aggressive,” said head coach Lynn Milligan. “Last year when we played Virginia, they swallowed Amanda up. The progression that Amanda had between the two games is a positive. She wasn't afraid to take shots and try to make plays today.”
Last season against the Cavaliers, Sepulveda was held scoreless, going 0-3 from the field in 13 minutes of play.
It was an even battle between the two teams with Virginia leading 6-4, four minutes into the game.
“Our goal today was to force Virginia into its half court offense,” Milligan said. “When Virginia ran its offense and wasn't in transition off a turnover, we did a pretty good job. We just made too many turnovers and they got too many easy layups streaking down the floor.”
Leading by three, the Cavaliers went on an 8-2 run, opening up a 21-12 lead with 11:46 remaining in the opening half.
“Early in the game, we made some shots and forced Virginia to run its half court offense and they struggled a little bit," Milligan added. "The game started to get out of hand when we turned the ball over and they got easy looks.”
After a Sepulveda three-pointer cut the Cavalier lead to six, Virginia (10-2) went on a 22-2 run, eight points by Monica Wright and seven points by Lyndra Littles to give the Cavaliers a 43-17 lead with three minutes left in the first half and Virginia led 48-19 at intermission.
Wright finished with 22 points with Littles scoring 21 for the Cavaliers.
Virginia's defense caused 34 Rider turnovers which led to a 36-2 points off turnovers advantage.
“Our transition game was a real advantage for us,” said Virginia head coach Debbie Ryan, in her 32nd year at the helm of the Cavaliers who now has 685 career wins. “Whenever you can get quick, easy shots like that and not to have to work as hard for it, it is an advantage. If we had to work for more of those shots, it would have been a different game. They {Rider] couldn't stop our transition because we were able to steal the ball so much.”
The Cavaliers had 18 steals in the game.
After another Sepulveda three cut the Virginia lead to 30, the Cavaliers responded with a 21-2 run to open up their biggest lead of the game 78-29 with 8:27 left.
The Broncs have lost seven in a row with the Cavaliers winning their fifth straight.
Virginia has won all five meetings against Rider with the Cavaliers winning in Lawrenceville, New Jersey 98-51 on January 2, 2008.
Also for the Broncs, junior Tammy Meyers (Willingboro) had nine points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes of action.
The Cavaliers out-rebounded Rider 52-30 including 23-7 on the offensive glass. “There are still some fundamental things that we need to do better at, boxing out, things like that,” Milligan said. “Against some of the other teams that we play, you may not be exposed as much but with Virginia's talent, every mistake, every error gets exposed and they took advantage of every single little mistake that we made.”
“Virginia makes you play faster than you want to,” Milligan added. “At times we took one too many dribbles and that gave them a chance to recover and that got us into some trouble.”
Virginia went to the line 37 times, making 25 with Rider unsuccessful on all three of its free throw attempts.
“Going through what we did today, we got better,” Milligan said. “I know people will think that is a crazy statement but playing a team like Virginia will make us better mentally and we are going to need a tough mental makeup heading into conference play next week.”
This was Rider's lowest offensive output of the season and its lowest scoring game since losing at Pennsylvania 66-38 on January 10, 2006.
Rider (2-8) will face Maryland Baltimore County in the consolation game of the tournament at 4:30pm on Monday with Louisiana Tech. facing Virginia in the championship game at 7:00pm.
Louisiana Tech. defeated the Retrievers 83-62 in the first opening round game.
This is Rider's first in-season tournament since advancing to the championship game at the Wagner Tournament December 29-30, 2006. The Broncs defeated the host Seahawks 71-59 before falling to St. Bonaventure in the title game 75-59 in Staten Island, New York.
“The best part of this tournament is we get to come back right away and play on Monday,” Milligan added. “I want the team to forget the score but not the lessons learned from this game. UMBC is a very, very good basketball team. Their philosophy is to out score you and run and gun. They are a very solid team and we are going to have to be ready to play.”
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