The shots didn’t fall for the Florida women’s basketball team against FSU and it lost by four.
Poor shooting doomed UF(1-2) once again Friday as it fell 81-58 at Pittsburgh (2-0) in the Petersen Events Center.
“Clearly, there were a lot of problems. … Disappointing from the beginning, disappointed with the way we started the game, shots didn’t fall. We didn’t prepare well enough and let down on all fronts,” coach Amanda Butler said. “Pitt kicked our butt.”
The teams were tied at 14 with 10:34 left in the first half, but the Panthers ran away with the game after that, going on a 12-0 run.
Pittsburgh’s Taneisha Harrison was a one-woman wrecking crew. The junior guard carved up the Gators for 20 points in the first half and scored a career-high 25 points to go along with five rebounds and four assists.
While UF shot and missed, the Panthers were making buckets thanks to open looks with a larger, and more experienced, lineup. Pittsburgh outscored UF 38-14 in the paint, and no combination of speed and size Florida threw out seemed to work.
Ndidi Madu was the only semi-bright spot on an otherwise dull post night. The 6-foot-1 forward only tallied 7 points, but she led the team with five rebounds.
The game got out of hand by the end of the first half, as the Panthers pounced on the Gators’ ineffective shooting and post game to establish a 43-20 halftime lead.
Pittsburgh outscored the Gators in every way possible, shooting 50 percent from the field, including 7 of 13 from beyond the arc, and dominating the paint with 20 points in the first half.
“They hit shots,” said starting guard Steffi Sorensen, who finished scoreless on 0-for-7 shooting. “They came out firing. The score doesn’t even indicate how opposite the game felt as far as how they dominated us.”
Florida’s weaker post game forced the ball to the perimeter and missed shot after missed shot built frustration — and the Panthers’ lead.
“The missed shots were certainly a problem,” Butler said. “But when you allow a team to score 43 points on you in 20 minutes of play, I think that’s a bigger problem.”
The Gators didn’t make their first three-pointer until the 18:49 mark in the second half when Susan Yenser finally dialed one in from downtown after the team was unsuccessful in its first 12 attempts.
“I don’t think we were mentally ready to come in here and battle and compete on someone else’s home floor,” Butler said.
Offensive ineptitude wasn’t helped by lapses in defense. The Gators forced four turnovers in the first half but couldn’t score off any of them. By comparison, Pittsburgh scored 11 points off Florida’s turnovers in the decisive first half.
“The only thing you can really control is your defensive effort and your rebounding effort,” Butler said. “We weren’t good in any aspect. You have to give Pitt a lot of credit, they were ready to whip our butts and that’s exactly what they did. They embarrassed us tonight.”
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
