CSU coach Anita Howard: ‘I don’t think it’s a loss, it’s a lesson’

The Columbus State University women’s basketball team saw its season come to an end on Tuesday with a 78-73 loss to Virginia Union in the Division II national quarterfinals at Alumni Hall in Columbus, Ohio.

The Lady Cougars took a 45-42 lead into the locker room at halftime after outscoring Virginia Union 22-16 in the first quarter. CSU carried a six-point lead into the final quarter, but Virginia Union erased the deficit in the early stages of the period with a 10-2 run to take a two-point lead.

The Lady Cougars managed just 10 points in the final quarter of play.

“We just really stopped attacking,” said head coach Anita Howard. “They shot 30 free throws to our 14. Early on, I thought we attacked their defense. In the first quarter, we went straight at them, and we fed our post. We just went away from that; we didn’t feed the post to get that inside presence going.

“Our guards just didn’t do a good job feeding our bigs. For the most part, we were evenly matched inside; Ashley (Asouzu) and Alexis (Carter) were evenly matched with their bigs. I don’t think we gave them enough touches at the end. I think we settled for too many 3s, and we didn’t attack in that fourth quarter. We scored 10 points in the fourth quarter; one of my girls could have done that by herself.”

Senior guard Britteny Tatum led all Lady Cougars with 18 points.

“She didn’t want to go home,” Howard said of Tatum. “She’s a senior captain. She felt like she left it all out there on the court, and I was going to give her the minutes out there to do whatever she needed to do. She stepped up big for us. We just didn’t have that last bit of gusto to finish the game strong. She’s one of our best dribble penetrators, but we were being cautious down the stretch. We went away from what we do best, push the envelope and push the tempo.”

Junior forward Alexis Carter had 17, while senior forward Ashley Asouzu also finished in double figures with 10 points. Asouzu and Carter also finished with nine rebounds each.

Starting point guard Keyrra Gillespie led the team with eight assists.

The two teams alternated the lead back and forth down the stretch, with the Lady Panthers taking control late, forcing CSU to foul. The Lady Cougars had a few looks to bring the game within one possession in the game’s final seconds, but an outside jumper and a couple of layups failed to go in.

The loss Tuesday snaps a 22-game CSU winning streak. The Lady Cougars season ends with a 31-2 record, a Peach Belt championship, a Southeast Regional championship, and a berth in the NCAA Elite Eight.

“First off, I’m extremely proud of what we accomplished along this journey,” Howard said. “For us to be 31-2, I don’t think we could have given our six seniors a better season as one of the eight teams in the country still playing, even though we came up short. It’s just an honor in itself.”

When Howard was hired in June to take the helm of the Lady Cougars basketball program, she envisioned CSU jumping onto the national scene. In that aspect, her first season can be considered a success.

“I always said when I was hired that I was hired to take the team from a winning program to a national power,” Howard said. “That’s what I tried to do, and I had them believing. For them to be here and see it, it’s a good foundation going forward. It’s hard to win it your first year out, but to get here in our first year, all the returners will be able to take this experience and feed off it for next season.”

With six seniors departing, Howard and the CSU coaching staff have already begun to restock the cupboard for an even deeper run into the postseason in 2018.

“I believe we’ll come back bigger, better, and stronger,” Howard said. “We have some early signees in already. We’ll have a much stronger backcourt. We’re bringing some shooters in, and we’ll have another strong point guard to replace Keyrra Gillespie. I’m super excited. For the returners, this will make them that much more hungry.

“I’m glad we got this far to get all the jitters out of our system as far as being in the Elite Eight and focus on the game at hand.

“I think we got a little too caught up in the glitz and glamor that the NCAA did, which was phenomenal. We didn’t play our style of basketball down the stretch.

“I don’t think it’s a loss, it’s a lesson. It’s a lesson we needed moving forward to continue this dominant program I plan on building.”

This story was originally published March 21, 2017 at 8:56 PM with the headline "CSU coach Anita Howard: ‘I don’t think it’s a loss, it’s a lesson’."