Oakland women roll over UMKC
PERFECT:Oakland's Bethany Watterworth was a perect 9-for-9 from the floor in the Golden Grizzlies 75-50 win Saturday over UMKC. Courtesy Photo.
ROCHESTER, Mich. – Sophomore Bethany Watterworth was perfect from the field and scored 21 points, while senior Anna Patitto had 13 points and junior Sharise Calhoun scored 12 to lead the Oakland University women’s basketball team (5-3, 2-0) to a Summit League win over UMKC (3-5, 0-1) on Saturday at the Athletics Center O’Rena. The Golden Grizzlies shot a season-high 68.8 percent from the field to start the year 2-0 in Summit League play for just the fourth time in the division I era.
“Our team played really solid for both halves,” said Oakland head coach Beckie Francis. “They were very unselfish. I was excited that out of 33 baskets, 29 were assisted. It was just really good offense and very unselfish play.”
Watterworth was 9-for-9 from the field including a career-high three 3-pointers. For the fourth consecutive game, the forward from Lake Orion, Mich. was into double-figures by halftime, something she has done six times this season with OU going 5-1 in those games. Watterworth also added a career-high three blocks to go along with five assists. She leads Oakland in points (18.5), rebounds (6.6) and assists (3.75) per game this season.
“It was one of those nights were everyone on the team was hitting everything,” said Watterworth. “Our defense sparks our offense, so when we were getting stops it just fueled our offense to get fast breaks and easy layups.”
The Kangaroos shot just 24 percent from the field in the first half as Oakland has held opponents to under 30 percent shooting and less then 20 points in the first half of the last four games. After UMKC scored the first basket of the game, Oakland went on a 12-0 run and never looked back, taking a 34-15 lead into the halftime break.
The Golden Grizzlies knocked down 33 shots with 29 buckets coming off assists from teammates. Oakland came into the game ranked 17th in the NCAA with an average of 19 assists per game this season. Calhoun led OU with six assists and scored 10 of her 12 points before the halftime break.
Patritto, who ranks second in The Summit League in assist-to-turnover ratio, had five assists and just one turnover to continue her impressive start to the season. She also scored 11 points in the second half, finishing with a season-high 13.
Janee Williams and Peyton Adamson both came off the bench to score a team-high nine points to lead UMKC. The Kangaroos’ bench out-scored the OU reserves 34-22, continuing a trend of outscoring the opposing bench in seven of the ‘Roos’ first eight games of the season. It is the first time all season that Oakland has held a team without a double-digit scorer.
Junior Brittany Carnago blocked two UMKC shots to move into fourth place on the all-time leaderboard at OU with 132 career blocks. She came into the game ranking 17th in the nation in blocks per game and is just one block shy of moving into 12th place for career blocks in The Summit League and two blocks short of a tie for 11th all-time.
Freshman Zakiya Minifee came off the bench to claim a game-high four steals and also added a big block late in the game. The Golden Grizzlies lead The Summit League with an average of five blocked shots per game and had seven rejections against UMKC. OU is also tops in The Summit in defensive field goal percentage, with teams averaging just 32.2 percent from the field against the Golden Grizzlies
Category: Oakland University
