WBIT: Bella Murekatete lifts Washington State over Toledo 63-61, as Cougs head to semifinals
By the narrowest of margins, the Cougars can begin packing for Indianapolis. Washington State State women's basketball team defeated Toledo by the narrowest of margins in a Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT). The Cougars came back from trailing by 10 points in the third quarter to take a lead on Bella Murekatete's jump shot with three seconds left. Despite Toledo's Quinesha Lockett missing a game-winning shot, the Cougars managed to secure a win. They will now face Illinois in the semi-finals of the tournament. WSU coach Kamie Ethridge admitted to bickered throughout the game but maintained his confidence in the player.
Опубликовано : 4 недели назад от Peter Harriman в
By the narrowest of margins, the Cougars can begin packing for Indianapolis.
Washington State came back from trailing by 10 points in the third quarter, took a lead on Bella Murekatete’s jump shot with three seconds to play and could finally exhale when Toledo’s Quinesha Lockett drove past Murekatete but left a game-tying shot on the rim as time expired.
The Cougars slipped past the Rockets, 63-61, and will now face Illinois in the semi-finals of the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.
“Things happen,” Lockett said afterwards. If her shot had crawled over the rim “we would be smiling right now instead of crying.”
The Cougars summoned uncommon resolve at the end to ensure they would be the ones smiling. Beyonce Bea, shooting in rhythm, nailed a long two-pointer with 50 seconds remaining to tie the game at 61-apiece. After WSU inbounded the ball under its own basket with four seconds to go, Murekatete took the inbound pass and without hesitation went up in the lane with the game winner.
“I coached Bella for five years. I never set up a play for her to take the last shot,” WSU coach Kamie Ethridge said. Ethridge admitted she and Murekatete bickered for “the entire game. She thought I was picking on her. I was not happy with some of her responses.”
But Ethridge also insisted “I had a lot of confidence in her to make that 17-foot shot. She stepped right up and made it.”
A beaming Murekatete said in a postgame press conference “there is nothing better than having your coach be confident in you.”
While WSU opened a quick 10-5 lead on Toledo, the Cougars and Rockets had vise-like grips on each other for most of the first half, and the lead hardly varied by more than a couple of points. Toledo finally nosed ahead at the half, 34-30.
In the third quarter, however, WSU lost focus and quickly found itself trailing, 40-30, after Sophia Wiard’s basket and foul shot, and leading scorer Sammi Mikonowicz’s three-pointer. WSU worked its way out of that trouble but still exited the third quarter trailing 51-49. The Cougars only began to assert control when Jessica Cook scored in the lane with three minutes to go. That brought WSU within two, 61-59, and set up Bea’s game tying shot and Murekatete’s game winner.
“We tried to get around their screens. We had a hand up,” Rockets’ coach Tricia Cullop said of defending Murekatete. “But she made it. She’s a good basketball player.”
Nonetheless, after the game Cullop was still surfing the crest of a close, hard-fought battle, regardless of the outcome.
“When you leave a game, you want to know you left everything out there. My team left everything out there.”
She said of the Cougars heading to the WBIT Final Four “they have got a great shot to win this thing. I wish them the very best.”
The box score suggests the difficulty WSU had overcoming Toledo. The Rockets outscored WSU in the lane, 34-22, in second-chance points, 7-6, in fast break points, 4-2, and in points from the bench, 22-11.
Ethridge characterized the game as a “slugfest” and pointed out in the second half each team went deep into the shot clock on many possessions.
Backing Mikonowicz for Toledo were Hannah Noveroske, with 14 points in the paint, and Lockett with 12. Ethridge said it was big for the Cougars that Lockett got all those points in the first half and they held her scoreless after the break.
Eleanora Villa paced WSU with 15 points. Tara Wallack added 14, and Murekatete was WSU’s third double-figure scorer with 11.
With the WBIT Final Four being held at Butler University’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the Hickory Huskers won the Indiana state championship in the movie Hoosiers, Ethridge said of her team “we’re going to have to spend some time watching Hoosiers. They’ve got no idea of the arena we’re going into.”
And, of course, if the Cougars do watch Hoosiers they will hear Gene Hackman’s character, coach Norman Dale, tell his team before the championship game what he could have told either WSU or Toledo after their war.
“If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game. In my book, we’re gonna be winners.”