The North Carolina women’s basketball team was just plain
bigger than Fresno State. And the basket, at least for the
Bulldogs, seemed as small as a golf hole.
The 12th-seeded Fresno State Bulldogs took 50 3-pointers, missing 36, and their best player Jaleesa Ross made just four of the 20 3-pointers she launched. Down the stretch, UNC was too much,
and it advanced to the second round of the women’s NCAA tournament
with a 82-68 victory Saturday at The Pit.
“I think Fresno State is probably the best 12-seed in the tournament,” UNC Tar Heels head coach Sylvia Hatchell said. “If there’s another 12-seed that is better I don’t know who it is.”
Fifth-seeded UNC faces fourthseeded Kentucky tonight at The Pit.
UNC’s Italee Lucas out-dueled Ross and came up big beyond the
arc. She finished with a game high 22 points and was 4-of-8
from 3-point land. “It’s a good thing I made those 3-pointers,” she said. “That balanced it out a little bit, and if they kept hitting 3s and we are just scoring 2s, then they would lead
most of the game.”
While Lucas was the Tar Heels’ offensive threat, Tierra Ruffin-
Pratt came off of the bench as the Heels’ defensive stopper, and she
blanketed Ross.
Ruffin-Pratt limited Ross to 5-of-21 from the field and kept her from tying or setting the women’s NCAA record 3-point record. Ross, a senior, was three 3-pointers away from tying Kansas State’s
Laurie Koehn with 392.
Ruffin-Pratt said that the Tar Heels’ game plan was to shut Ross down.
“We knew we just had to guard her and stay on her because she
was going to put up a lot of shots,” she said. “I’m used to guarding the best player. They always put me on the best player, and it doesn’t matter what team it is.” Ross made only four of her 3-point attempts, but she did eclipse the 2,000-point mark, finishing with 2,002 career points.
In her four years, Ross led Fresno State to the NCAA tourney every
year, but the Bulldogs never won. Ross said she and other Bulldog seniors have left an impression on Fresno State women’s basketball.
“From freshman year to now, Fresno State has made great leaps,”
she said. “I’m proud of our senior class for being able to go through as many obstacles as we’ve gone through to get to the point where we can be champions every year — to where we can come and play
in this tournament every year. We got a closer game this year than we have had in the past.”
Fresno State showed they were ready for the challenge.
The Bulldogs opened with a 14-5 lead in the game’s first 3:41,
but UNC went on a 16-5 run over the next six minutes.
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The Tar Heels grabbed a 47-39 lead at the beginning of the second
half, thanks to a 7-0 run to start the period. Jessica Breland sunk a jumper to end the run with 17:11 left.
Fresno State head coach Adrian Wiggins said the Bulldogs stuck
to what they did best all season: shooting the 3-pointer.
“We tried to do some things that we’re good at, and we shot 50 treys, which we forced on purpose,” he said. “It’s pretty evident
that they’re long underneath, and I thought that would give us problems if we spent too much time in the paint.”
The Bulldogs were 7-of-21
from inside the arc, and Ross said
the Tar Heels’ size gave the Bulldogs
fits.
“I think their length was a bit
of a challenge for us shooting,”
she said. “I don’t think we shoot
many deep 3s, because we’re usually
on the line, and it comes from
penetration and pitch. We had to
step off the line a little bit to get
(shots) off.”
