Jan. 10, 2013

Box Score | Postgame Report

MILWAUKEE - Kim Demmings scored a season-high 35 points to lead Wright State University to a 71-61 victory over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee women's basketball team in the Horizon League opener Thursday night at the Klotsche Center.

Senior Sami Tucker paced the Panthers (4-9, 0-1 Horizon League) with a double-double of 17 points and 13 rebounds, but the Raiders (7-7, 1-0 Horizon League) scored seven points in a row in the final minute of the first half to take a 10-point lead and then played evenly the rest of the way.

"We can grow from this, we can learn from this," UWM head coach Kyle Rechlicz said. "I thought our defense was a lot better - they hit a lot of contested shots. I know that going into future games that we are going to continue to play as hard as we did tonight."

Junior Angela Rodriguez finished with 16 points, joined in double-figures by junior Emily Decorah, who netted 12 points on four made three-pointers. Tucker posted her first double-double of the season and the 10th of her career and inched closer to becoming the 17th player in program history to eclipse the 1,000-point barrier, ending the night at 993.

"A lot had to do with Sami Tucker - she played incredibly hard and extremely well," Rechlicz said. "She gave everything that she had tonight. If we can continue to get that out of her, I know that we will compete with a lot of teams in our league."

Demmings made 13-of-20 shots, including half of her 10 three-pointers, and really gave WSU momentum at the end of the first half.

"When somebody is hot, it's hard to get them out of that mentality," Rechlicz said. "We tried to trap her in the second half, but she's so fast that we knew we would get some fouls on her and that sent her to the line for more points. She had a great night."

After trailing by as many as nine points at 15-6 early in the first half, the Panthers slowly clawed themselves back into the contest. They were within four at 27-23 on a lay in by sophomore Janna Swopshire and then, a bit later, a layup by Tucker made it 31-28 with just under three minutes to play before intermission.

After trading three's, Wright State managed to score the last seven points in the final 43 seconds, with Demmings hitting a jumper with 15 seconds left and then weaving through traffic to drill a three-pointer at the buzzer and make it 41-31 at halftime.

UWM scored the first five points of the second half to try and get back into it, but the Raiders responded with an 8-2 run that pushed the advantage back to 11 and then kept Milwaukee at arms-length the rest of the night.

The Raiders ended up shooting 46.6 percent (27-for-58) from the floor in the game compared to 37.3 percent (25-for-67) for the Panthers. WSU brought an interesting game plan, holding the ball near midcourt every possession that did not involve its transition game to slow the pace tremendously.

"Every time we tried to make a run, they combatted it," Rechlicz said. "I think the biggest thing was that they dribbled the ball out near halfcourt for a lot of the game to stop our transition game. It was a great game plan. We worked a lot on our transition defense and they really didn't look to run at all. It was more working their sets to slow us down from getting our points."

UWM held a 17-13 edge in offensive rebounds and actually won the turnover battle, 13-11, but Wright State turned the miscues into a 22-5 advantage in points off those turnovers.

Sophomore Ashley Green chipped in with seven points and eight rebounds, while senior Sammy Theut tied her career-high with six rebounds.

Up next, the Panthers hit the road for a weekend trip in the Horizon League, starting things off with a Thursday contest at Youngstown State. Tip off against the Penguins is set for 6 p.m. CST.