Women's Hoops Guru

(Guru's Note: We were on the scene here but duty called from afar when Temple almost upset No. 8 Georgia. Fortunately, while the Guru worked remote reporting from Georgia for print, Stephen was here to do the heavy lifting for the blog.)

By Stephen K. Lee

PISCATAWAY, N.J. – One would think that most teams bouncing back from a heartbreaking loss with a 19-point win would be all-smiles after the game.

But Rutgers isn’t like most teams.

In their second game of the season after reaching the NCAA championship game last year, Rutgers head coach C. Vivian Stringer and the No. 6 Scarlet Knights were disappointed with their performance in their 62-43 win over Creighton on Friday despite never trailing at any given point of the game.

A week ago, Stringer looked at the Blue Jays, a rare unranked commodity on the rugged early season schedule, as a chance to hold lab class and run experimental combinations off her bench.

But not long into the process, Friday night, it seemed like chemistry was no longer being taught.

“I’m not happy with the way we played,” Stringer said after the game. “I think we think that the game we’ve been playing for the last two times is good enough and it is no where near enough.

“It is nothing but on the road to major failures. We have got to address a number of things, defensively and offensively.”

Rutgers senior forward Essence Carson also expressed her disappointment in her team’s effort.

“Everyday we try to tell each other that we have to focus because this year’s going to be a lot harder and it just seemed that things just weren’t going our way tonight.”

Coming out of halftime ahead just 29-18, despite out-shooting the Bluejays 50 percent to 13.8 percent, the Knights quickly found themselves on the ropes.

In the first three minutes of the second half, Creighton outscored Rutgers 12-4, cutting the Knights lead to 33-30. Bluejays seniors Sara Cain and Ally Thrall each hit two threes over that span.

Rutgers answered Creighton’s charge with a 21-7 run over the next nine minutes to pull out to a 54-37 lead with 6:21 remaining in the game.

Rutgers sophomore guard Epiphanny Prince scored eight points over that stretch and Carson added another six.

“At that point we had to stop their run,” Carson said. “We had to put shots to go in. The way we did that was by attacking and attacking the basket and we did a great job of doing that. At the time it was just: attack and get some shots.”

Prince said that after she felt that she had to step up during that span with senior guard Matee Ajavon on the sidelines after leaving the game with a cramp in her upper right leg.

“I just feel like I wasn’t being more aggressive and I just wanted to come out and be more aggressive and attack the rim,” Prince said. “Especially when Matee went out, I felt that we were taking too many jump shots.”

Prince and Carson both finished with a game-high 12 points. Prince also had seven rebounds, three assists, two blocks, and two steals. Carson had three rebounds and four assists.

After the game, Stringer also expressed her frustration with her team’s problems getting the ball to its post players.

“We turned the ball over quite a bit trying to make easy passes to Kia Vaughn,” she said. “(Kia) was probably anxious as the pass was coming in. The guards were anxious because that’s a major point of emphasis.

“We cannot win ballgames unless we work inside-out. That doesn’t matter whether that’s this team or any other team. It doesn’t matter whether Kia takes the shot or not or Rah takes the shot or not. We’ve got to attack inside and out.”

Stringer was also disappointed in her team’s failure to box out.

“We talked about rebounds – that’s going to be key,” she said. “So today, quite honestly, we’re going to see who blocked out.

“We’re going to break that tape down tonight and we’re going to find out who was blocking out and who just thought that they were just going to get a rebound. And we’re going to deal with that tomorrow. We will definitely deal with that.”

Stringer knows that the Knights will have to correct their flaws before Sunday’s game against No. 14 George Washington, a team with a lot of inside-out firepower, in Washington D.C.

“I hope that we play a hundred percent better when it comes time, and much more intense, and we focus on the things that we know how to do and do them well when we get ready to play George Washington because George Washington is for real.”

The Colonials used to be a key conference rival of Rutgers, when the Scarlet Knights belonged to the Atlantic Ten.

NOTES: Rutgers sophomore forward Myia McCurdy scored a career-high eight points to go with seven rebounds and an assist….RU sophomore center Rashidat Junaid, a graduate of Camden Catholic High across the Delaware from Philadelphia, had a career-high four blocks to go with 10 points and six rebounds….RU junior forward Heather Zurich played much of the game with a mask after receiving a shot to the face in the Knights’ loss to Stanford…Rutgers was 0-for-3 from three-point land, ending a 43-game streak with making at least one three-pointer. Freshman guard Khadijah Rushdan, the all-time leading scorer in Delaware high school history, made her debut with three rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals off the bench. However, she also was 0-for-4 from the field and committed four turnovers. The graduate of St. Elizabeth High in Wilmington had been limited since arriving here because of a minor knee surgery.