BOXSCORE
NORFOLK, Va. – The only thing that went right for the No. 16seeded Jaguars of Southern University in the first half was winning the tip,but after that it was a very aggressive No. 1 seeded Duke squad that ended theJags season 96-27, in the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournamentat the Ted Constant Convocation Center.
The two-time SouthwesternAthletic Conference Player of the Year, Rolanda Monroe of Southern was held toonly five points and two rebounds in only 14 minutes of play. Sandy Pugh theJaguars head coach stated that she was sick before the game but didn’t tell thecoach that she wasn’t feeling well. Pugh said that she noticed how Monroe was alittle dehydrated and was struggling on the floor.
“The last time I saw hermiss consecutive free throws was at the end of the SWAC Tournament when she wascompletely exhausted. With Rolanda’s situation it didn’t bold well for us,”said Pugh who has a 115-60 career record at Southern. “The other kids needed tostep up to the table but they didn’t. I salute Tiffany (Jones) for her effortbut we had some stretches were we didn’t play smart at the guard spot.”
Southern finishes the seasonwith a 20-11 overall record and won the SWAC regular season and conferencetournament titles. Duke raises its record to 27-3 and advances to play SouthernCalifornia in the second round.
(Tiffany) Jones, a juniorpoint guard from Baltimore, led the Jaguars in scoring with seven points, sixrebounds, three assists and two steals. Ciara Shiggs, the Jaguars senior guardfrom Atlantic City, added five points while sophomore Fredrieka Lewis andsenior Ashley Blake scored four points each.
Monroe did not participatein the official NCAA post game press conference and stayed in the restroom areawhen the locker room was opened up to the media. She was gingerly holding herstomach as she was walking back to the team bus after the game.
Duke was lead byAll-American forward and Washington DC native Monique Currie with 19 points andeight rebounds while Lindsey Harding added 18 points and three assists. MistieWilliams and Wasisha Smith added 10 each. All 11 Duke players scored in thegame and played more than 10 minutes each. Starting center Alison Bales, a6-foot-7 junior added eight points and seven rebounds.
The 27-point total gameoutput by the Jaguars was the lowest number of points scored in NCAA Tournamenthistory. With only 11 points scored after halftime, tied the record for thesecond fewest points scored in the second half in a NCAA Tournament first orsecond round game.
“We normally see soft trapsbut when you see two 6-foot-2 girls coming, its hard for a small guard like meto see over,” said (Tiffany) Jones. “It took me a while to adjust. I grew upwith Monique (Currie) and wasn’t shocked-like coach (Pugh) said we have a youngteam and they didn’t know that the game was going to be so aggressive. Theyreally wasn’t ready for it.”
The 69-point Duke win wasthe fifth largest margin of victory in NCAA Tournament history. The Duke 60rebounds to Southern’s 28 was the highest number of rebounds in NCAA Tournamenthistory and the 32 rebound margin is the second highest in NCAA history behind35 by Tennessee (57) vs. Virginia (22) on March 23, 1989.
“The season didn’tdefinitely end the way I had hoped, but it very rarely never does,” said Pughwho has sent her third Jaguar team to the NCAA’s in six years. “All year longthe kids battled, battled, battled . . . we had our ups and downs this season.”
Duke, who has been a No. 1seed five times in the last six years, jumped out to a 40-16 halftime lead byholding Southern to just seven of 29 (.241) from the field and forcing 14turnovers that lead to 20 Duke points. Duke also out rebounded the Jaguars inthe first half 32 to 18 leading to 12 second chance points.
Shiggs lead the Jaguars atthe half with five points and (Tiffany) Jones scored four. Currie led Duke withnine points at the half while Harding added seven.
Pugh also stated that it wasthe size of Duke’s team that defensively caused problems for her team and thatit caused them to be out of sync all game.
The Jaguars finished thegame shooting 11 of 60 (.183) from the field. Duke scored 44 points in thepaint and 38 points from the 26 Jaguar turnovers and blocked 10 Jaguar shots,three by 6-foot-5 Shante Black and two by the 6-foot-3 Williams.
“They (Southern) have twoexcellent players-we were keying on them,” said Duke coach Gail Goestenkors,when referring to SU’s Monroe and Lewis. “We wanted to make it difficult tofeed the post. We did an overall pretty good job at that. We haven’t blown ateam out in a while and I think it was good for our confidence.”
Pugh looking at the futurefor her Jaguars to be the SWAC team to win its first NCAA Tournament gamestated that they must first do a better job in winning the preseason (non-SWAC)schedule to not get a No. 16 seed and continue to bring in better players toSouthern.
“They (Duke) are top of theline and at some point in each of their players career they were some type ofAll-American in high school,” said Pugh. “I knew in Duke that we had the beastby the tail.”
Monroe, the all-timecareer-scoring leader in Southern history, ended her glistening four-year stintas a Jaguar, with 1,972 points and the leader for the most 3-pointers in acareer with 207. She also finished ranked No. 4 on the career assist list andNo. 2 in steals.
The outlook for Southernnext season is that the Jaguars return the strength of its post play withcurrent sophomores led by Lewis, a 6-foot-4 center along with power forwardsKrystal Huggins and 6-foot-2, Indi Johnson. The team will also look at AshtonJones, a freshman center who at 6-foot-3 has played in 27 of the Jaguars 31games this season.
” We have to hold our headup and salute this season-I now have to go out and get me some guards who canshoot the mid-range jumper and address our teams effort day in and day out,”said Pugh. “Aside from a couple of seniors this team is very young and I lookforward to working with them for next season.”
NOTES
SU NCAA HISTORY: This was the third time that Southern has earned aberth into the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, all under head coach SandyPugh. The Jaguars were defeated by Colorado 88-61 in the 2002-03 season andlost to Texas 92-57 in the 2003-04 season.
JUKEBOX READY: The Southern University pep-band began playing 33minutes before the game started and received a rousing applause after each songby the Ted Constant Convocation Center crowd trading songs with the Dukepep-band who stood watching and listening to the SU band, who started with “HeadBusta.” The band was also introduced and played the National Anthem at thestart of the game. Sitting next the band after halftime the Jukebox receivedapplause from the USC (Southern California) Trojan pep band, which was to playin the USC/South Florida following the Southern/Duke game.
HALFTIME HORROR: In the Jaguars three NCAA appearances the team hasbeen behind at the half by 20 to Colorado (41-21) on March 15, 2003, by 33 toTexas (55-22) on March 21, 2004 and by 24 to Duke (40-16) on March 18, 2006.
HOME STATE RECRUITING: The Jaguars listed seven players from the state ofLouisiana and none from North Carolina. The SU roster contains three from Texas(Lewis, Deshundra Antoine and Terricka McLemore), one from Alabama (AshtonJones) and one from Los Angeles (Johnson). Duke only has one player on is itsroster listed from the state of North Carolina that is 6-foot-5, sophomorecenter Chante Black from Winston-Salem and none from Louisiana.
