Nov. 28, 2012
WEST LAFAYETTE, IND. – The Georgia Tech women’s basketball team (3-3) dropped a hard-fought 85-73 battle to No. 14/13 Purdue (6-1) Wednesday night in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.
It is the first loss for the Yellow Jackets in the Challenge. Tech is now 5-1 in ACC/Big Ten Challenge games.
Junior Tyaunna Marshall led Georgia Tech with 26 points, her 59th career double digit scoring game and her 15th career game with at least 20 points. Marshall added five rebounds and four assists. Junior Dawnn Maye finished with 16 points, seven assists and five rebounds. Senior Jasmine Blain tallied 10 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals.
“I felt like it was a game of two different halves,” head coach MaChelle Joseph said. “We got ourselves in foul trouble and we can’t put our best players on the floor. It’s really difficult to play. We’re not that deep of a team that we can play 10 people against a team like Purdue when we’re in foul trouble. That’s been one of our problems in our three losses is our fouling, we’re fouling too much. And today it was our turnovers. To have two point guards turn the ball over 13 times is too much and Purdue did a great job of capitalizing on those turnovers. I was worried about their offensive balance and today they were able to get that balance with inside and outside scoring.”
Freshman Brittany Jackson hit a three just 10 seconds into the game and the Boilermakers would chase the Jackets for nearly the entire first half. Georgia Tech earned its biggest lead of 11, 23-12, on a 3-pointer by Blain.
The Boilermakers earned the first tie of the game, 32-32, on a layup by Liza Clemons at the 2:32 mark of the first half. Purdue took its first lead, 34-32, on the next possession when Courtney Moses converted a layup.
Georgia Tech tied the score at 43 two and a half minutes into the second half on a Sydney Wallace jumper with an assist from Marshall. After a quick steal by Maye, Tech re-gained the lead on Marshall’s layup with an assist from Maye.
The two sides would go back-and-forth until a 12-0 Purdue run culminated with a Drey Mingo layup at the 6:16 mark, making the score 72-62 in favor of the Boilermakers.
Tech would twice get the Purdue lead down to seven in the final six minutes but could get no closer.
Purdue finished the game shooting 52.4 percent and 70 percent in the second half.
Georgia Tech will return home for the first time since Nov. 18 when the Jackets take on the No. 8/9 Georgia Lady Bulldogs at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2, at McCamish Pavilion. Tickets are available on RamblinWreck.com or by calling 888-TECH-TIX. Fans unable to attend can listen live on WREK 91.1 FM or watch live on CSS.
Fans are encouraged to follow Georgia Tech women’s basketball on Twitter, @GTWBB, and like the Yellow Jackets on Facebook, GTWomensBasketball, for an inside look at the program.
–RamblinWreck.com–
