Women’s Basketball Falls 71-50 to Hot-Shooting #11/12 Rutgers
Owls lose fifth straight; return home Saturday against Auburn
PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Hot shooting by #11/12 Rutgers, particularly in the first half, lifted the Scarlet Knights (7-0) to a 71-50 win and handed Temple women’s basketball its fifth straight loss. The Owls (2-5) have played six straight on the road and will finally return home this Saturday.
For Rutgers, its 54.9 percent shooting percentage was the best since 2009, while for Temple the five-game losing streak is the longest since a seven-game losing streak suffered back in 2002-03.
Shey Peddy scored a team-high 16 points, also leading the Owls with six rebounds and four steals. Freshman Tyonna Williams came off the bench and hit her first three three-point attempts en route to a season-high 11 points.
April Sykes led all players with 19 points for Rutgers and the Scarlet Knights got 16 from Khadijah Rushdan along with 15 from Monique Oliver.
As the Owls committed two turnovers in just over a minute, the Scarlet Knights sank three of their first four shots and took a 6-0 lead. Rutgers would go on to stay hot from the field for the entire half, at one point shooting 68 percent and finishing with 19-of-29 (65.5 percent).
The Scarlet Knights took their first double-digit lead less than six minutes into the game at 16-6, and soon led by 12 on two occasions, the second at 23-11. Temple scored six straight to briefly slow Rutgers down, but the Scarlet Knights answered with a 14-2 run to take their largest lead of 18, 37-19 with 4:31 remaining in the half.
From that point the Owls were able to come within no fewer than 13 the rest of the half, which they achieved thanks to Williams hitting 3-of-3 from behind the arc and Peddy making one trey as well. Rutgers scored five of its last seven points at the free throw line and took a 16-point, 46-30 lead into halftime.
Free throw shooting helped Temple as well, as the Owls hit 8-of-10 from the free throw line in the first half but went just 9-of-27 from the field (33 percent).
Peddy and Joelle Connelly combined for the first five points of the second half as Temple quickly narrowed the margin to 11, but the Owls were never able to match that again the rest of the way.
The Scarlet Knights’ hot shooting slowed, but not significantly as the Owls’ struggles on offense continued. Temple played more aggressively on defense but for the most part was unable to capitalize on the other end. Even foul trouble for Rutgers did not prove helpful as the Owls went 3-of-13 at the line in the second half.
Temple was still within 12, 53-41 near the midway point of the half, but a 7-2 Rutgers run began to put the game out of reach. With four minutes left the Scarlet Knights took a 20-point lead to end all hope of another one of the Owls’ trademark comeback attempts this season.
After six games on the road, the Owls now return home for five straight, starting on Saturday. Auburn will visit the Liacouras Center at 1:00 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the Temple men’s basketball team, which faces Central Michigan at 4:00 p.m.
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