Guerry Clegg: A bitter pill to swallow for Lady Cougars
If it's true that a team learns more in one loss than in several wins, maybe Columbus State's 72-68 loss Sunday in the Peach Belt Tournament championship was a good thing. Or at least a healthy thing.
Maybe it was just what they needed going into the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional. Like bitter medicine.
Not much went right Sunday for the Lady Cougars. Just about every offensive possession was a struggle. Every turn of defense was frustrating.
"They were getting anything they wanted offensively, and we were getting one and done on the offensive end," said CSU coach Jonathan Norton. "We just couldn't make a shot. You look at our three-point percentage -- 2-for-11. I think we made one in the first half. It was just a struggle to get the ball to go in the hole for us, and for them they got it in the paint and it went in often."
The frustration spilled
over into the postgame. Michelle Mitchell, CSU's best player and leader with 30 points Sunday, refused to walk out and accept her award for making the All-Tournament team. That didn't sit well with Norton, who would not allow Mitchell to speak to the media.
"I was disappointed that she didn't come out to accept her All-Tournament award, and so we'll deal with that as a team matter this week," Norton said.
Ashley Asouzu, who had 17 points and nine rebounds, questioned the heart of some of her teammates. She was asked if having to carry the offensive load with Mitchell put more pressure on them.
"I wouldn't necessarily say it puts pressure on us, but it's frustrating because both Michelle and I have faith -- a lot of faith -- in these girls," Asouzu said. "And when they're not performing up to par it frustrates us a little bit. It just makes us wonder, 'Do you want the game? Do you want to win as bad as we do?' It's all about effort. Tonight I feel like our bench could have contributed more. But we will be in the gym working on our skills. That's all there is to say about it. We'll be ready."
But they certainly didn't seem ready Sunday. Lander had a lot to do with that. Bre Crum is a lightning quick guard who poses matchup problems for everybody. Ty'Hesha Reynolds was unstoppable early in the game. Breshay Johnson dominated some possessions inside. Six of her eight rebounds came on the offensive glass. Those three combined for 55 of Lander's 72 points.
Mitchell and Asouzu combined for 47 of CSU's 68 points. But that doesn't tell the full story. The other Lander players combined for 6-of-14 from the field. The other CSU players combined for 9-of-27.
The surprising stat was that CSU had only six turnovers and forced 12 from Lander. But the number of bad shots for CSU kept adding up.
"They make you play faster than you want to play. Even when we didn't turn it over against their full court pressure when we got it across half court we weren't really in our spacing. We weren't executing. We weren't running our stuff cleanly. They made it a struggle," Norton said.
"We could never find that calm place and just calm down," said Asouzu.
Yet, despite it all, the Lady Cougars some how managed to scrape and claw and tie the game at 68-all with 58 seconds left to play. Even after Crum put Lander ahead 70-68 and Mitchell missed a three-pointer, CSU had a chance to tie it again after Asouzu stole the ball with 14 seconds left and Norton called timeout.
But they couldn't run a clean in-bounds play. The ball was supposed to go to Mitchell. Instead, it went Britteny Tatum, who dribbled the ball off her leg. Norton blamed himself for not preparing Brea Walker to make inbound plays under pressure. They had another turnover on their next in-bounds play.
"That's on me," Norton said. "I haven't put Brea Walker in that situation enough for her to be confident and know exactly where the ball is supposed to go to, so that's coaching."
Tatum struggled especially. She had 20 points Saturday in the semifinals but was just 4-of-11 from the field Sunday and missed all four of her free throw attempts.
"We've had a nice three-headed monster in Ashley, Michelle and Britteny," Norton said. "The ball just didn't go in for Britteny. I expect her to bounce back. I already told her that sitting out there while they were doing the All-Conference awards. I just told her, 'Hey, keep your head up. You're one of the big reasons we're here in the first place. One bad game doesn't define a season or a career. We'll have a day off (today). We'll get in the gym and we'll work at it and try to get ready for the NCAA regional.' "
Said Asouzu: "We just have to stay positive. We're still a great team. It was just a moment that great teams have moments like this. They will lose. It happens. You cannot be down about it. We just have to prepare for regionals-- if we made it to regionals, which I'm pretty sure we did -- and get ready and be ready to win."
Winning can cure a lot of ills.
This story was originally published March 6, 2016 at 10:01 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: A bitter pill to swallow for Lady Cougars ."