The Owls came up short against two of the conferences best this week.
Shooting woes and points allowed in the paint spelled trouble for the Owls in the program’s first Conference USA home game, a 59-47 loss to Middle Tennessee State on Thursday night at the Convocation Center.
A recurring theme for the Owls this season has been the play of senior Forward Prencis Harden, who was named as one of the two Conference USA Players of the Week for the week of Jan. 6.
Harden notched her conference-leading eighth double-double of the season — the 19th of her career — by halftime, notching 11 points and 10 rebounds in first 20 minutes.
Harden would finish the game with a team leading 21 points to go along with 16 rebounds, two steals and one block.
“Talk about a player who did not miss a step in the maturation and development of her game,” Owls coach Octavia Blue said. “To have a player of her caliber be so consistent, so reliable, not only for me but for her teammates each and every night to help us be in games by scoring points offensively and rebounding the ball, has just been a joy.”
The Blue Raiders were led by the play of last season’s Defensive Player of the Year Anastasiia Boldyreva, who tallied a game leading 26 points to go along with eight rebounds and three blocks.
The Owls’ entered this inaugural conference home game with as tough of a challenge as they could have asked for, facing an MTSU program that had won an all-time record 31 games against CUSA opponents entering the matchup.
While this was the first matchup between the teams since KSU joined CUSA, the two teams have met three times before, with the Blue Raiders winning all three games, including their last matchup on Dec. 12, 2013.
The familiarity between these teams in their former matchups, while limited and seemingly trivial, showed in the intensity that the Owls displayed against the Blue Raiders, playing them well in a first half that saw seven lead changes and four ties, with the Owls entering the half down 24-23.
However, the Blue Raiders outscored the Owls 35-24 in the second half, shooting an efficient 16-28 (57%) from the field.
They ended the game with a 38-14 advantage over the Owls in points scored in the paint.
“When you’re playing against a high caliber championship team when you make defensive mistakes, they hold you accountable,” Blue said. “And that’s what you saw happen in the fourth quarter.”
The Blue Raiders’ defense also got to the Owls in this matchup, holding them to 14-56 (25%) from the field, down from the Owls’ season average of 39% shooting from the field.
The Owls’ next game was at home on Saturday, Jan 11 at 1p.m. against Western Kentucky. WKU displaced the Owls without much difficulty, never trailing in the contest en route to a 72-62 win.
Keyarah Berry and Lee Lee Willis led the Owls with 19 points each, while WKU’s Destiny Salary led all Hilltoppers’ scorers with 22 points.