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No. 12 Vanderbilt Rides Rebounding to 89-74 Win over Women's Hoops
December 30, 2006 | Women's Basketball
The loss dropped Princeton to 5-8 while Vanderbilt rose to 12-1 on the season.
"They're a very good team," head coach Richard Barron said of Vanderbilt. "I thought we played well. In the end, they were 15 points better."
The glass has decided the victor in 11 of Princeton's 13 games this year, with the Tigers at 1-8 when they lose the rebounding battle and 4-0 when they win it. Saturday, the Commodores outrebounded Princeton 48-35, including 20 offensive rebounds.
The statistic was even more important considering the teams shot fairly evenly, with Princeton hitting at 42 percent (26 of 62) and Vanderbilt at 45 percent (29 of 65).
Princeton's woes from the free-throw line also hampered the Tigers' chances as the team hit 16 of 27 to Vanderbilt's 25 of 30. Like rebounding, free-throw shooting has been a bellwether stat for Princeton this year as the team is 2-7 when hitting fewer free throws than its opponent.
Meagan Cowher had Princeton's first five field goals of the game on the way to tying a season-high with 21 points as she broke 20 for the third time this year. Rookie Jillian Schurle also matched her collegiate best with 12 points for the second straight game.
Casey Lockwood added 11 as each team had three players in double-figures. Dee Davis led Vanderbilt with 18 as Carla Thomas scored 14 points and Liz Sherwood added 12.
Vanderbilt didn't lead by more than seven through the game's first 10 minutes, and Princeton had the lead down to three at 23-20 with 11:17 to play in the half on an Ali Prichard three-pointer. But four Tiger turnovers over the next two minutes and eight over the rest of the half from that point helped Vanderbilt grow its lead to 53-35 at the break.
The Commodores made 10 of 16 from the field to close the half after Princeton had whittled the lead down to three at 23-20, while the Orange and Black made 5 of 17 from the field during the stretch in addition to the eight turnovers. Princeton had just two turnovers over the game's first nine minutes.
A 16-1 Vanderbilt run that began with 7:10 to go in the first half and continued just past the two-minute mark was the game's decisive stretch. The Commodores held Princeton without a field goal from the start of the run until 1:13 remained before the break. It gave Vanderbilt its largest lead of the game, 22 points at 51-29, as Princeton never got closer than 11 at 55-44 with 17:38 left in the second half.
The contest was the last "home visit" game of the season as sophomore forward and Franklin, Tenn., native Whitney Downs, who had five points in 19 minutes, was the eighth out-of-state Tiger to play in her home area. Princeton will return to the northeast to play at Lafayette Wednesday at 7 p.m. The Ivy League schedule will begin Saturday at Penn.
NOTES
Vanderbilt now leads the series 2-0. The teams' previous meeting came in December 1999 in Hawaii, which was an 85-30 Commodore win.
Meagan Cowher's 21 points gave her 851 for her career. She is seeking to become Princeton's 17th 1,000-point scorer.
Cowher, who had her double-digit scoring streak snapped at Duquesne Dec. 22, has now scored at least 10 points in 18 of the last 19 games dating back to last season.
Vanderbilt's 53 points in the first half were a season-high for an opponent in a half and were the most since Dec. 20, 2005, when the Tigers allowed 60 to Tennessee in the second half of that game.
Liz Sherwood, a Vanderbilt junior, was one of just two players in all of Division I to finish last season with a higher field-goal percentage than Becky Brown '06, a Nashville-area native who was at the game Saturday. Brown finished third at 63.3 percent and Sherwood second at 64.2 percent. The national leader was Crystal Langhorne of national-champion Maryland (67.0).
Vanderbilt coach Melanie Balcomb's father was an assistant coach to longtime Princeton men's basketball mentor Pete Carril. Balcomb grew up in Princeton's Mercer County in Cranbury, N.J. while attending Hightstown High School and Trenton State (now The College of New Jersey).
Vanderbilt was the second ranked team Princeton has played this year. Rutgers (Dec. 9) was ranked 19th in the AP poll and 21st in the coaches' poll at the time of the schools' Dec. 9 meeting.
Princeton was the second Ivy League team Vanderbilt has played this year after defeating Dartmouth 79-49 on Nov. 18 in Nashville.
Richard Barron used a season-low 10 players from his 17-person roster. He had used between 11 and 17 players in every game this season.