Wake Forest University
Virginia
Wake Forest Falls 69-50 to Virginia
1/6/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 6, 2008
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The Wake Forest women's basketball team dropped its second ACC contest on Sunday with a 69-50 loss to Virginia at the Joel Coliseum.
Wake Forest Junior Alex Tchangoue had her third double-double of the season with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Monica Wright was the high scorer for UVA with 26 points, while Aisha Mohammed had the high-rebound mark of the game, with 11 grabs.
The Cavaliers (11-5, 1-0) netted 24 points off Demon Deacon (12-4, 0-2) turnovers, which proved to be a decisive statistic.
"In the first half they had 17 points off our turnovers," Wake Forest head coach Mike Petersen said. "You're going to make some turnovers in a game but you just can't throw it to them. That happened on far too many occasions."
The Cavaliers jumped out to a 4-point lead before Wake Forest's Groves had the first Deacon points of the night at the 17 minute mark. On the next Wake Forest possession Courteney Morris knotted the game at 4-4 with a jumper just inside the arc and Christen Brown hit another bucket to give the Deacs their first lead of the game.
UVA's Paulisha Kellum's 3-point basket with 14:54 set the Cavs a one-point advantage, but Alex Tchangoue countered with a layup for Wake's final lead of the half.
Just as the momentum began to shift in the Deacon favor, Wake Forest hit a brick wall in shooting, going 0-6 with six turnovers in six minutes. The Cavs used the WFU shooting drought to add 13 un-contested points and take a 20-8 advantage with 7:39 remaining.
"Shooting the ball isn't something you can make better by yelling at it or putting more pressure on it," Petersen said. "That part of the game gets better when you relax a little and we haven't been doing that. "
Freshman Kem Wilson added four points to whittle away at the Demon Deacon deficit and two good free throws by Christen Brown with two minutes to play set the score at 28-18 heading into the halftime break.
The Cavs opened the final half with a nine-point run, to set the score at 37-. UVA's Wright had 13 points in the second half, helping Virginia take a 30-point advantage at the 8:21 mark.
"This is two games in a row now where our opponent has really dictated how we are going to play," Petersen said. "Clearly we've taken some steps in the wrong direction as a team. This one really got away from us."
Wake Forest will now head to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech on Thursday, January 10, for its first road contest in over a month.
