Montana
Temple
Owls too much for Lady Griz, win 61-52
12/14/2013 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 14, 2013
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Temple had a 52-38 rebounding advantage, including 20 offensive boards, and limited Montana to 32.8 percent shooting in a 61-52 victory over the Lady Griz Saturday night that snapped Montana's 11-game winning streak at Dahlberg Arena.
Temple (5-2) led by one at the break, 27-26, and opened the second half on a 15-5 run to build a lead that wouldn't dip below five points the final 16 minutes of the game.
Shi-Heria Shipp had 17 points and 16 rebounds for the Owls, who turned their 20 offensive rebounds into 18 second-chance points and a majority of their 20 free throw attempts.
Jordan Sullivan led Montana (6-2), which only got 31 points from its five starters, with 16 points and 11 boards, her second career double-double.
The Lady Griz, who were outscored by nine from the line, the same margin as the final score, limited the Owls to 32.3 percent shooting.
"The difference was probably offensive rebounding," UM coach Robin Selvig said. "I thought we did a pretty nice job defending them, but they got 20 offensive rebounds, and that got them to the free throw line a number of times. That's basically where the difference came."
Temple was forcing more than 19 turnovers entering the game, but Montana mostly handled the Owls' pressure in the first half and built a lead as large as seven points when a Sullivan jumper put the Lady Griz up 15-8.
After that basket, though, Montana connected on just two field goals the next eight minutes, going 2 for 13, and Shipp's seven points over the final seven minutes of the half allowed Temple to take a one-point lead to the locker room.
"They are good on the defensive end. They have good pressure," Selvig said. "We weren't going to shut them down completely, so we needed to be able to shoot it better than we did."
The game was mostly decided in the first seven minutes of the second half, when Montana opened 1 for 9 and Temple built an 11-point lead, 42-31.
The Lady Griz never went away, but they couldn't come up with the key baskets that could have closed the margin to one possession.
Montana's best chance to make a run came when McCalle Feller, who scored a career-high 10 points off the bench, hit a three and Kellie Cole knocked down a jumper to cut the lead to five, 52-47, with 4:24 to play.
After a Carly Selvig block at the other end, Sullivan had a clear look at a 3-pointer that could have trimmed the deficit to two, but it was off the mark, and baskets by Natasha Thames and Shipp -- both in the paint -- on Temple's next two possessions built the lead back to a comfortable nine points.
"I thought we had enough good shots to get them tonight," Selvig said. "They are good defensively, so you're probably not going to get as easy of good looks as you might against other teams, but we still had them and needed to make some of them."
In the end it was too many points in the paint -- 34 of Temple's 46 points from field goals came from close range -- too many offensive rebounds and too many free throws.
"They are patient, they spread you out, they put their head down and go to the hole, and then everybody else goes in and jumps and rebounds it," Selvig said. "They got too many second chances and got to the foul line too many times off their offensive rebounds."
Sullivan matched her career high with 16 points, but Selvig and Maggie Rickman were held to a single made free throw between them, and Temple's quickness limited the effectiveness of the Lady Griz' backcourt of Cole and Torry Hill, Montana's leading scorers.
Hill had eight points, and Cole had six, but those 14 points came on 6-of-21 shooting.
Feller helped make up the perimeter scoring off the bench, and Alycia Sims had a big night with 11 points and eight rebounds -- Feller and Sims accounted for all of Montana's 21-10 advantage in bench points -- but 52 points as a team wasn't enough.
Temple travels to upstate New York and faces No. 25 Syracuse Monday night. Montana will travel to Wyoming on Monday and face the Cowgirls (7-2) Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Laramie.
