The women's basketball team took a hard hit on Saturday, running into a Bates team that couldn't miss and coming up on the short end of a 78-47 score. The 78 points are the most allowed by the Jumbos since January of 2005.
Tufts hit its first three shots from the floor, as a jumper by junior Laura Jasinski just 25 seconds into the game sparked a stretch that showed the Jumbos at their best. With early points in the paint from Jasinski and sophomore Khalilah Ummah, the Jumbos jumped out to an 18-8 lead. A road win over the Bobcats, 5-1 in NESCAC play and just a half-game out of first place, looked possible.
A thirty second timeout with 11:23 to play in the half righted the Bobcats, who exploded for a 32-5 run, playing nearly perfect basketball and turning a 10-point deficit into an 18-point lead. Shooting 14-23, including four of seven beyond the arc, and converting all four offensive rebounds for second-chance points, the Bobcats rode an unstoppably hot shooting hand to a 43-25 halftime margin.
"We did a good job pushing the ball and being on attack in the first 10 minutes," Jasinski said. "We were driving to the hoop, and we got them back on their heels, but we started missing shots [and] they used long rebounds to create fast break points and really took off."
Bates sophomore guard Sarah Barton scored 10 of her 18 points during the stretch, converting an offensive rebound into a jumper with 5:45 remaining in the half, following with another jumper and a pair of back-to-back three-pointers to open up a 14-point lead for her team.
"It was definitely a defensive breakdown - we gave up a couple of offensive rebounds and missed some shots, and they caught on fire," coach Carla Berube said. "They were hitting everything and we weren't."
The offensive action was dominated by Bates, as the Jumbos shot just three-for-20 during the 11-minute rout and coughed up five turnovers, three of which the Bobcats converted for baskets on the other end.
Coach Carla Berube called two timeouts to try to stop Bates' momentum and get her team back on track, but it turned out that the only thing that stopped the barrage was the clock, as the Bobcats took an 18-point lead into the locker room.
"We stopped boxing out, and they were getting offensive rebounds and putting them back," Ummah said. "Our shots weren't falling and theirs were."
While numbers don't always tell the whole story, the two teams' shooting percentages give a pretty good snapshot. Bates was on fire on its home floor, shooting 47.8 percent overall, and 50 percent in the second half, compared to just 28.4 percent from the Jumbos. The story was the same from behind the arc (43.8 percent to a dismal 13.3 percent) and on the foul line (five of eight for the Bobcats and seven of 15 for the Jumbos).
The friendly rims did not extend to Tufts' perimeter shooters, as senior Jessica Powers and junior Valerie Krah shot a combined two for 11 from long distance.
"A lot of their shots were halfway in and spun out," Berube said. "It was definitely frustrating."
With its bombers neutralized, Tufts was led by its post players, as Ummah, Jasinski and junior Libby Park combined for 30 of the team's 47 points. Ummah had a team-high 12 points on five of six shooting and eight rebounds. Park added 11 points and seven rebounds, and Jasinski chipped in seven points and six boards.
"A bright spot in the game was feeding the post, and getting the ball into Khalilah and Libby and Laura," Berube said. "They did a great job of posting up and the guards did a great job of getting it in there. When they were double-[team]ed, they kicked it back out, but we couldn't hit our outside shots."
The Jumbos actually stayed under their average of nearly 19 turnovers per game, committing only 16, but the Bobcats still converted the miscues into 24 points.
The Jumbos have a mid-week game against non-conference Salve Regina on Tuesday before returning to Cousens Gym for their final two games of the season, NESCAC match-ups against Trinity and Amherst.
Tufts is currently eighth in the league at 2-5 in conference play, and the two final games are critical for a bid to the postseason NESCAC tournament.
"We know we're not getting a top seed, and this is definitely a do-or-die situation for us," Jasinski said. "We have to beat Trinity to be in the tournament, and hopefully we'll be able to step up and get that urgency in our play next weekend."
