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It seems like only three UNM women’s basketball players showed up to play at Houston on Friday.
Freshman point guard Bryce Owens (20 points), junior forward Deeva Vaughn (14) and senior guard Caroline Durbin (17) combined to score 51 of the Lobos’ 62 points in a 77-62 loss to the Cougars.
Head coach Yvonne Sanchez said she was more upset by the lack of defense than the lack of a balanced attack.
“It’s disappointing. That’s not what we wanted. We didn’t get enough firepower from some of the other people we normally get. (The Cougars) shut them down,” she said. “Offensively, it’s great. We have three people in double figures and all, but to give up 77 points … My thing is the defensive end. We were very disappointing on the defensive end.”
Houston led 37-27 at halftime, but UNM was able to cut the lead to 39-33 after Vaughn hit a layup with 17:21 remaining in the half.
But as the game continued, the Cougars outscored the Lobos 28-14 until they were ahead by 20 with 6:35 left in the game.
Houston shot 54 percent for the game, while UNM shot 39 percent.
Sanchez said it was UNM’s worst defensive performance of the year.
“We gave up transition baskets. We gave up unguarded threes,” said Sanchez. “We fouled, 23 personal fouls to their 10. Everybody could say, ‘Well, you’re on the road and you got hosed a little bit,’ but that wasn’t the case. No excuse.”
Houston junior forward Marissa Ashton led the Cougars with a team-high 22 points on 8 of 13 shooting, freshman forward Marche‘ Amerson was second with 18 points and senior guard Porsche Landry hit 7 of 11 shots for 15 points. Ashton also hit 6 of 9 on 3-pointers coming off the bench. Sanchez said the team must learn from this loss.
“We didn’t guard her. One kid beat us from three. We didn’t guard the player on the scouting report that we deemed the shooter. She torched us,” Sanchez said, referring to Ashton. “I’m not happy at all. It’s not a good effort on our part. The overall effort, we have to get better at and we will.”
UNM (6-2) had 34 rebounds against Houston’s (4-5) 32 and hit 6 of 16 treys for the game, but the Cougars shot 8 of 17 from downtown.
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