ATLANTA -- The Georgia State women's basketball team had its five-game winning streak snapped as poor shooting coupled with foul trouble doomed the Panthers in a 67-51 loss to UT Arlington Saturday at the GSU Sports Arena.
Georgia State (10-11, 6-3 Sun Belt) managed just 18-of-71 from the field (25.4%) and 11-for-30 from the free throw line (36.7%). In the game in which 52 fouls were called, three GSU players fouled out and two UTA players.
The game was actually much closer than the score might indicate. The host Panthers led the entire first half, but for a 25-second span, and took a 30-26 lead into the halftime break.
In the second half, UTA (2-18, 1-8) erased a 31-29 lead at 19:31 with a 8-0 run to make it 37-31 at 16:27. By then, both GSU post players had four fouls, which was not good when two other post players did not play with injuries. One fouled out at 8:48 and the other at 6:31. Combined, those two logged only 26 total minutes of the possible 80 minutes they could have with their foul trouble.
UTA maintained the lead at 47-41 with 9:37 to go and GSU narrowed it down to 48-43 with 7:50 still to play. It was still a six-point game with 57-51, but by then GSU's leading scorer, Kendra Long, had become the third Panther to foul out.
UTA ran off the final 10 points of the game over the last 2:45, mainly with free throws. All told there were 66 free throws shot, 36 by UTA and 30 by GSU in the foul-fest.
Georgia State's second-lowest offensive night of the season saw Kayla Nolan score 10 points and grab nine rebounds. Gaby Moss added nine points. Kendra Long had seven points, seven rebounds, six assist and three steals.
UT Arlington was led by 6-foot-3 Desherra Nwanguma, who gladly took advantage of GSU's foul troubles by scoring 13 points and picking up 15 of GSU's errant 71 shots. Forward Briana Walker contributed 21 points and nine boards, including 15 of those points and all nine rebounds in the second half.
The second-half by GSU would have to rate as its worst half of the season as the team shot 22% from the field (8-of-36), shot only 23.5% from the free throw line (4-of-17), and shot 1-12 outside the arc (8%). In that second half, GSU was outrebounded 32-19 and allowed UTA to shoot 50% (12-of-24) The 23.5% from the charity stripe comes from the team that leads the Sun Belt in FT percentage at 71% on the season.
"UTA played hard and controlled the boards, so give credit to them and they deserved to get this win," coach Sharon Baldwin-Tener started postgame. "But, every single aspect of the game for us was especially poor tonight. We missed bunches and bunches of lay-ups, we couldn't even make a simple free throw and that translated into some poor defense.
"We were already thin with injuries and then we got into foul trouble, so that was a problem for us," coach said. "Walker went off on us in the second half in the paint. During our five-game winning streak, we made shots, we shot free throws well, we hustled on defense. None of that was there tonight. In the locker room, the team was very upset at themselves and losing bothered them, so now we will see how well we play over the second-half of the Sun Belt season after going 6-3 in the first half."
The loss cost Georgia State a chance to move into a tie for first in the Sun Belt, but they still sit tied for second at 6-3. First-place Arkansas State (7-2) was upset Troy and second-place Western Kentucky (-6-3) was toppled by Texas State (5-3). South Alabama upset preseason favorite UALR, now 5-5, the team that is Georgia State's next opponent Wednesday night.
