No. 14/12 Rutgers Pushes Past Georgia, 45-34
Dec 08 | Women's Basketball
PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Junior guard Epiphanny Prince (Brooklyn, N.Y.) scored 14 points and classmate Brittany Ray (Bronx, N.Y.) had 13 to drive Rutgers to a 45-34 win over Georgia in the Jimmy V Classic on Monday evening at the Louis Brown Athletic Center.
Prince tallied her 1,000 career point in the contest, the sixth-fastest player in program history to do so.
| Epiphanny Prince reached the 1000th career-point plateau. (Tom Ciszek/NJSportsPhoto) |
Rutgers (4-2) tallied the first five points of the game but Georgia answered by scoring nine of the next 11 points to take its first lead, 9-7 on a lay-up by Porsha Phillips with 14:26 on the clock. The teams traded field goals as junior Rashidat Junaid (Chesilhurst, N.J.) tied the game at 11-11 just over two minutes later.
UGA put together a 9-0 rush to push ahead, 20-11, following a free throw by Phillips at the 7:57 mark. The Scarlet Knights ended their five-minute scoring drought on an old-fashioned three-point play by Ray on the next possession.
RU pieced together its own 9-0 scoring spurt, concluding with a floater from Prince in the lane at the 2:08 mark to tie the game at 20-20. The basket was the 1,000 career points for the junior.
Ray nailed a buzzer-beating three-pointer just before the halftime horn to give Rutgers a lead it would not relinquish, 23-22.
The Lady Bulldogs closed to 26-25 early in the second half but committed turnovers on seven of their next nine possessions as the Scarlet Knights forged ahead. Rutgers used a 15-4 run to take its largest lead (41-29) with 7:44 remaining on a baseline jumper by senior Heather Zurich (Montvale, N.J.).
The contest was anything but pretty offensively as the teams combined for 51 turnovers.
Rutgers freshman Jasmine Dixon, a 5-11 guard out of Long Beach, Calif., has decided to transfer. Dixon saw action in five games for Rutgers, averaging 3.2 points and 1.6 rebounds per game.
"Jasmine has the ability to be a great player. This was not a good fit. I wish her the very best in the future," head coach C. Vivian Stringer said.
POSTGAME NOTES
With the win…
*Rutgers extends its home winning streak to 17 games, the ninth longest in the country. RU has not lost at home since Nov. 11, 2007 (Stanford).
*RU improves to 2-1 all-time in Jimmy V Classic games, including wins in two consecutive seasons. Rutgers defeated Maryland 68-60 on Dec. 3, 2007.
Third lowest scoring output in Georgia history...
Rutgers held Georgia to its lowest points total since its inaugural season. On Feb. 15, 1974, the Bulldogs managed only 31 points in a 48-31 loss at home to Berry. The 34 points is the third lowest output for Georgia in its history.
Prince to 1,000…
Junior guard Epiphanny Prince became the 28th Scarlet Knights player to tally 1,000 career points. With her 14 points in tonight's win over Georgia, Prince now has 1,009 points in her career. The junior has reached the 1,000 point plateau in just 76 games, the sixth fastest in RU history. The bucket that Prince scored her 1,000th point on capped a 9-0 Rutgers run and tied the game at 20-20.
Defensive dominance…
The Scarlet Knights held Georgia to only 34 points on 12-of-35 shooting. RU last held an opponent to 34 points or under when the Scarlet Knights hosted Temple on Dec. 30, 2007 and the Owls managed 34 points on 10-of-38 shooting from the field. Rutgers last held an opponent under 34 points when Georgetown managed only 33 points on Jan. 13, 2005.
Comeback kids…
The Scarlet Knights have overcome large deficits in each of their last two games. In tonight's victory, Rutgers trailed by as many as nine points. However, RU overcame an even bigger deficit at Temple when the Scarlet Knights rallied for a come-from-behind victory over the Owls after trailing by as many as 15 points.
Ray in double figures in three straight…
With 13 points in tonight's win, junior Brittany Ray has now scored in double figures in three straight games. It marks only the second time in Ray's career that she has been in double figures in three consecutive games. The only other time that occurred was in Ray's first three collegiate games during the 2006-07 season.
SEC dominance at home…
Rutgers has been extremely successful against the Southeastern Conference at home. With tonight's win, the Scarlet Knights improve to 13-4 at home versus SEC schools and 2-1 against the Bulldogs.
Forcing turnovers…
The Scarlet Knights forced a season-high 26 turnovers in tonight's win. It marked the most forced turnovers for RU since they equaled the mark against Bethune-Cookman in a 73-48 win on Nov. 29, 2005. RU's previous best prior to that was 29 forced turnovers on Jan. 30, 2005 in a 70-49 BIG EAST win over West Virginia.
No double figure scorers for the Bulldogs…
Rutgers didn't allow a Georgia player in double figures in its 45-34 win. The last time RU held a team with no double figure scorer was Nov. 18, 2007 when No. 12 George Washington didn't have a player hit the mark in a 67-42 RU road win.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Georgia Head Coach Andy Landers
On the amount of turnovers tonight: "We've been turning it over a little bit, but I think we've done a very good job with keeping our kids fresh through this span of games, they haven't been overworked or taxed. They're not tired. There is no way that comes into play tonight with all those turnovers. It's a lack of discipline, a lack of fundamentals."
On the RU press: "I think that honestly what they tried to do with one of the presses is keep you in front of them for two or three passes and then at that point with their trap, with the three quarters court, they don't really care, they just back it up. I think it's more of a tempo containment press to take time off of your shot clock and make what you do in the half court a little bit more difficult. At that point, where they back off is usually where we dribble through it."
On his impressions of Epiphanny Prince: "She's great off the crossover and to the basket. That tends to be her patented move. Left to right cross over and go, and she worked that on us a couple of times tonight."
Rutgers Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer
Opening statement: "I'm upset because we just didn't really play well. That's the highest number of turnovers we've had in a couple of years and the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. Hey, a win is a win and we'll take it at that but, it's not going to take us anywhere; nowhere. I just think that was a Georgia team that was not quite as inspired as they could have been. If they had been more aggressive they would have done the same job on us as Cal and Stanford did. It was good to have a win, so maybe we'll be a little bit more confident and not as tentative as we were."
On RU's defense: "The thing that ended up helping us was our match-up zone, which I do feel this team will be better suited to be a zone team rather than a man-to-man team. There big people were out trying to handle the zone, which means they were not in position to rebound."
On the lack of free throws: "The six free throws we got, it's not good for us statistically. We could win by 20 points or we could win by two, it depends on how the game was played."
On the offense tonight: "We are not really solid in our confidence or our ability to run offenses. Khadijah (Rushdan) will get much better, but I do need to have continued leadership out of both Epiphany and Brittany (Ray) until Khadijah gets to that point."
Rutgers junior guard Epiphanny Prince:
On her assessment of the game tonight: "I think that we did well defensively, but I think we have to step it up on the offensive end. I think we were settling for a lot of jump shots."
On reaching the 1,000 point plateau:
"I wasn't really thinking about that. I was just trying to get the win."
Rutgers junior guard Brittany Ray:
On the run at the end of the first half: "We were down and we just had to pick up the momentum. Coach Stringer said just to play defense and get stops. I think we did that and had a momentum change."
On the RU press: "I felt like when we went to our press and went to our zone, they couldn't really handle it. So we tried to stay in that as much as possible tonight."
