CEDAR CITY, Utah - March 3 - Southern Utah looked even with Oakland
University on paper following a 61-43 loss to the Golden Grizzlies on
Monday night. The only discrepancy was shooting percentage in the first
half, leading to a defeat for the Thunderbirds and dropping SUU to 6-23
on the year and 4-14 in conference play. Oakland improved to 19-9 and
12-6 in The Summit League.
SUU opened the game shooting 21.9 percent to Oakland's 43.3 percent, but stepped up in the second half with a shooting percentage of 48 percent to the Golden Grizzlies' 46.4 percent.
"You know this was one of those odd games that came down to shooting percentage," head coach Steve Hodson said after the game. "We didn't get the two to three shots in a row in the first half and were kept out of a rhythm."
Neither team built much of an advantage in the first few minutes of the game with Oakland holding the advantage, but with the Thunderbirds in striking distance of six to eight points. That changed at the 10:46 mark when the Southern Utah offense stalled at the 11-point mark for the next 7:30 minutes as Oakland went on a 10-0 run to build a 27-11 advantage with 3:22 on the clock.
The lead stayed in double-digits for Oakland going into the intermission with the score of 29-15 showing on the board as the teams went into the locker rooms.
Following the break, the Golden Grizzlies held tight to their opening half lead, but weathered a scare from the Thunderbirds as Southern Utah pulled together an 11-4 run to whittle the lead down to its lowest of the half at 13 (47-34) with 10:03 in the game.
Oakland resisted the charge and countered it with a run of its own, ballooning the lead to as much as 21 (58-37) with 4:22 showing on the clock. In the end, OU completed the 61-43 victory as the final whistle blew.
Oakland's Jessica Pike led all scorers with 20, followed by Melissa Jeltema with 18 and April Kidd with 12. Anne Westwood paced the Thunderbirds with 11 points and was joined in double figures by Aubrey Mackintosh with 10.
Southern Utah will now enter the Summit League tournament as the sixth seed and face the No. 3-seeded IUPUI Jaguars on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
"We are going to enter this thing 0-0 just like everybody else now," Hodson said of the tournament. "Our challenge will be to win three games in three days, but when we come to play anything can happen."
