Seton Hall University
Temple
WBB Falls at Temple, 54-38
11/15/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Senior guard Brittany Morris (Raleigh, N.C.) finished with a game-high 12 points for the Pirates, scoring 10 in the second half when she also knocked down a pair of three-pointers. Her long-range buckets increased her career-total to 110, placing her in a tie for third place in school history with Melissa Langelier (2001-04).
Senior forward Alexandra Maseko (Harare, Zimbabwe) had eight points and tied her career-high with nine rebounds, and sophomore guard Alexis Brown (Jacksonville, Fla.), who was making her first appearance of the season, had seven points and a career-high six steals.
Seton Hall trailed Temple by just three points at the half, 21-18, holding the Owls to 26.1 percent (6-of-23) shooting in the first period. But Temple came out and hit 10 of its first 11 shots after the break to open up a 14-point lead.
Seton Hall's defense was impressive in the first half as the Pirates forced Temple into committing 14 turnovers and the Pirates capitalized on those additional scoring chances, leading the Owls 10-0 in points off turnovers over the first 20 minutes of action.
Seton Hall also made nine trips to the free throw line in the opening period, shooting 8-for-9 from the charity stripe, continuing a trend of accurate free throw shooting from the first two games of the year; SHU entered the game ranked fifth in the BIG EAST with a 73.9 free-throw percentage.
Temple led by as many as six points, 10-4, seven minutes into the game, but Seton Hall answered that deficit with a pair of free throws from Maseko and a fast-break layup by Morris following a steal by Brown, all scored in under a minute of game time.
Late in the half the Pirates closed to within one, again taking advantage of a Temple turnover. With under four minutes to play in the opening half Brown came up with her third steal of the game and found freshman Tabatha Richardson-Smith (Bay City, Texas) on the fast break to make it 17-16, but Seton Hall never came all the way back and trailed, 21-18, at the intermission.
Seven different players scored for Seton Hall over the first 20 minutes of the game, with redshirt sophomore point guard Ka-Deidre Simmons (Newark, N.J.) and Maseko leading the team with four points apiece. Sally Kabengano and Victoria Macaulay each had six points to pace Temple.
Seton Hall found some offensive rhythm once the second half was underway but Temple was nearly perfect from the field over the first 10 minutes of the period, shooting 10-of-11 before finally cooling off.
After the hot start Seton Hall made a quick run to cut the lead back down to single digits as Brown and freshman Jasmine McCall (Manalapan, N.J.) hit jumpers on consecutive possessions and Morris drained one of her two three pointers with 6:11 to play to make the SHU deficit just eight, but that was as close as the Pirates would get.
Temple missed seven-straight field goal attempts and turned the ball over five times before Rateska Brown hit a three-pointer to put the Owls back up by 13 with under three minutes to play.
Seton Hall limited Temple to just 3-of-12 shooting over the final 10 minutes of the game and forced a total of 26 Owl turnovers. Macaulay led the Owls with 16 points and 13 rebounds.
The Pirates are now 2-2 all-time against Temple, although it is just the second meeting between the two schools since 2002 and the first since 2010.
Seton Hall (2-1) returns to action on Monday, Nov. 19, when it heads to Ann Arbor, Mich., to face the University of Michigan Wolverines at 7 p.m.
