After 40 minutes, it’s back to the drawing board for the Longhorns.
The women’s basketball team saw its win streak come to an end on Wednesday night, falling 67-48 to the Iowa State Cyclones. Texas struggled shooting the basketball, finishing the game with a 37 percent field goal percentage compared to 49 percent for the Cyclones.
“I’m disappointed because I thought we would come out and play harder with more intensity,” head coach Karen Aston said. “And rebounding. We shot 37 percent to their 49 but we still get out-rebounded, and that just is not acceptable effort.”
Despite a solid start, including seven points from freshman Empress Davenport, the Cyclones did exactly what was needed to keep the Longhorns at bay in the first half. Iowa State blanketed the Texas frontcourt, holding its stars Nneka Enemkpali and Imani McGee-Stafford to a combined five points on 2-11 shooting.
“Iowa State was just better than we were tonight, and in pretty much every area of the game,” Aston said. “They were a better basketball team than we were. Disappointing, but credit to them. They were a better team than we were.”
The Longhorns continued to struggle inside in the second-half, finishing the game with 31 rebounds, their second-lowest of the season. Iowa State also held Texas to 10 points in the paint, while tallying 20 inside for themselves.
“Their two post players are really strong so you have to give them credit,” Enemkpali said. “Offensively, we were unable to really just bury them the way we buried TCU and Kansas State. Defensively, they buried us in what we should’ve been doing to them.”
The Cyclones shot 41.7 percent from the three-point line in the contest, opening up opportunities for Anna Prins to bring her total to 19 points for the game. After two straight dominating performances from Texas post players, this loss will force it to reevaluate its game plan.
Although the Longhorns recorded 14 turnovers, which was their fewest game total all season, a lack of urgency plagued them when it counted. After being out-rebounded and beat to the spot on defense more often than not, Aston is through playing the inexperience card.
“I can’t continue to blame it on youth because these players that are playing right now have had a lot of minutes,” Aston said. “We have got to understand the urgency of this league and we didn’t look like we understood it tonight.”
