February 22, 2003

Box Score

Villanova 71, Virginia Tech 61

 

The Virginia Tech women's basketball team was plagued by turnovers and another slow start in falling to the #20 Villanova Wildcats 71-61. The loss snapped Tech's 15-game regular season home winning streak and dropped the Hokies to 17-7 overall and 8-5 in the BIG EAST. Villanova moved to 20-4 and 10-3 in front of 2,581 fans at Cassell Coliseum.

Villanova hit six of its first seven shots in jumping out to a 17-6 lead. The Wildcats held on to lead 30-20 at halftime behind strong first half performances by Trish Juhline and Katie Davis, both of whom hit double figures in the half. The Wildcats also connected on 4-of-8 3-pointers, while Tech missed on all three of its attempts.

In the second half, Villanova stayed hot. The Wildcats' bigger guards continued to back Tech's guards down on isolation plays and hit short jump shots over them. Villanova extended its lead to 46-28 on an NBA-range 3-pointer by Juhline.

"The one advantage we have over them is bigger guards," Villanova head coach Harry Perretta said. "We tried to run our offense and if we got something off of it, take it. If not, then we would try to take the mismatch with the smaller guard that ended up on Trish or Courtney (Mix).

"We specifically practiced that. One thing about Virginia Tech, they are so fundamentally sound that we don't get a whole lot against them off of our sets because they defend them so well. If we want to beat them, we have to make individual plays."

Tech found enough left in its tank to cut the lead to six with a little over a minute to play, but the Hokies could get no closer. Villanova drained the shot clock and, on three different occasions, hit shots right as the buzzer sounded.

Ieva Kublina (Riga, Latvia) worked extremely hard in the post and it was reflected in her stats. She led Tech with 23 points and a career-high 17 rebounds, her fourth double-double of the season. She was the only Hokie in double figures.

Juhline led the Wildcats, hitting shots from all over the court and displaying the quickest release seen in Cassell Coliseum since the days of Dell Curry. She scored 28 points on 11-of-22 shooting and hit 3-of-6 3-pointers. On the only other occasion that Villanova visited Cassell Coliseum, on January 23, 2001, Juhline also exploded, scoring 27 points in a loss. Katie Davis and Mix chipped in with 18 and 15 respectively.

Tech did dominate the Wildcats inside, outscoring the Wildcats 42-16 in the paint and outrebounding them 43-23, but they were no match for the Villanova guards. Tech also committed too many turnovers (16), and the Wildcats made them pay, outscoring the Hokies 22-6 in points off of turnovers.

Tech's last home loss in the regular season came last season to eventual national champion Connecticut, 59-50 on Jan. 29, 2002.

Tech will look to get back to its winning ways on Wednesday, February 26 at Rutgers. The game will tip at 7:30 p.m.