Box Score |
Video Highlights
SAN FRANCISCO – BYU scored first in Saturday's game against the San Francisco women's basketball team. But the Dons proved to have the last laugh as the home team came away with the 65-56 victory over the Cougars at War Memorial Gym.
With the victory, USF moves to 9-11 on the season, and 2-5 in West Coast Conference action. Meanwhile, BYU moves to 13-6 (4-2 WCC) in its first-ever loss in San Francisco in the short series.
“BYU is such a good program so for us to beat that caliber of a team with really low numbers for us was really outstanding,” head coach
Jennifer Azzi said after the win. “I'm really proud of our players.”
The Dons were led by a pair of freshmen, with
Zhané Dikes' 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting and a 5-of-6 outing from the line leading the way. Close behind was
Taylor Proctor's 17 points and team-leading eight rebounds for USF. Senior
Mel Khlok added 14 points, five rebounds and a game-high five assists in the win.
The game began with a triple from BYU's Kim Beeston, but Proctor, a forward from Colorado Springs, Colo., rattled off the next seven points in the contest to give USF the early lead, which was never relinquished. The Dons continued to roll when
Taj Winston picked off Haley Steed and fed a streaking Khlok for the layup to give USF an 18-9 lead with 10:58 to play in the first.
USF continued to grow its advantage by finishing out the period on a 11-0 run as the Cougars committed five turnovers and missed its final four attempts from the field in the final 5:24 of the half. The Dons owned the 33-17 advantage at the break as the Dons posted its largest halftime lead in conference action.
“We went in the locker room and wrote up 0-0,” Azzi said about the halftime lead. “We can't think about the first half, however, have confidence from the first half because our defense was outstanding. That's what got us up. When we defend – it's not rocket science – but our offense is a lot better. So they defended really well in the first half and then they were able to carry that on for 40 minutes.”
BYU opened up the second with a 10-2 run to close the gap to single-digits with Beeston adding seven points for the Cougars in the first 4:10 of the half. The visitors cut the lead to four points off Stephanie Seaborn's layup with 10:11 to play and the score at 43-39. The teams traded baskets but the score was never within one possession when Proctor's acrobatic layup with 7:25 remaining made the score 51-45.
“We were up at the half and I think that everybody was just like we need to keep going,” Proctor said of the run. “We knew they were going to come out the first few minutes and that's where we had to pressure them, and pressure them hard. We wanted it more than they did.”
After a missed jumper by BYU,
Alicia Scafidi added a layup of her own on the next USF possession to extend the lead to eight. A jumper by Keilani Unga with 2:29 to play sliced the Dons' lead to five points as USF called a timeout. The Dons went on to close the game with a 7-2 stretch to earn the 65-56 victory over the Cougars.
In the first meeting of the season between the Cougars and the Dons, BYU shot 44.4 percent from the field and finished with 10 3-pointers en route to a 80-58 win. In this contest, the USF defense held BYU to 34.9 percent shooting and forced the Cougars into 14 turnovers. The 16-rebound advantage that BYU held in the game in Provo, Utah, was nearly erased as the Cougars edged the Dons on the glass 40-38.
Steed, the NCAA No. 1 assist-getter averaging 8.0 a night, finished the game with three assists, four turnovers and a team-leading 19 points on 7-of-17 shooting for the Cougars, including a 5-of-11 outing from beyond the arc. Only one other player, Beeston, topped double-digit scoring, finishing with 15 points in the loss.
“I know we'll come out ready on Monday against Saint Mary's and put out this same effort and I believe we can win,” Dikes said. “It's going to take this same amount of effort and team intensity. If we do this, play this well every game, we'll be fine. And I have no doubt that we won't do it.”
After a short turnaround, the Dons head to Moraga, Calif., to meet up with Bay Area rival Saint Mary's on Monday at 7 p.m.
Women's Basketball vs. BYU Gallery
