Junior guard Taylin Underwood and freshman guard Tyler Morrison struggle to get the ball up the court past Nicholls. The defensive pressure put on the Lady Lions by Nicholls caused 31 total turnovers and 18 steals.
Jonathan Rhodes/ The Lion's Roar

After having a six-point lead at halftime, the Lady Lions basketball team was outscored 45-23 by the Nicholls State University Colonels in the second half to defeat the Lady Lions 76-60.

Despite the offensive input difference in the two halves, Head Coach Errol Gauff believed the team had trouble throughout the entire game.

“I really don’t think it was a second half thing as much as it was really both halves,” said Gauff. “We just shot the ball really well in the first half. They shot better in the second half and our girl’s effort seemed to decrease as we fell behind and the margin got up to eight and more points.”

The Lady Lions are now 4-18 overall and 2-9 against the Southland Conference. They gave up 31 turnovers for the game. The Colonels recorded 18 steals pressuring the Lady Lions at half court for the entire game.

“We had 19 turnovers in the first half and 12 in the second,” said Gauff. “Turnovers were definitely our doom, if you will. We did not shoot it very well in the second half, and they were shooting better because the turnovers were in the open court and in transition.”

Charliee Dugas, freshman guard was the only Lady Lion to score in double digits with 16 points, while all five starting players for Nicholls scored in double digits. Nicholls also gave up 22 turnovers for the game, in part thanks to Taylin Underwood, junior guard and Jaclyn Scholvin, sophomore guard  led the Lady Lions with two steals apiece.

“I feel like we just kind of fell apart,” said Dugas. “We were not playing the same way we practice and we were not executing very well.”

Senior forward Chey Stewart led the team with eight rebounds while Underwood contributed eight assists. Gauff will be looking to get the team back to working on their fundamentals and to help the Lady Lions concentrate for their next game. 

“I know they don’t like doing them but we really have to get back to doing just dribble, pass, catch drills,” said Gauff. “Tonight, we had a nice crowd here and if they are honest with themselves like hopefully our players will go home and be honest with themselves they will realize we work on fundamental drills everyday and we got to take them more seriously. We just committed 31 turnovers. One of the radio guys afterwards said to me ‘Coach, do you realize out of 31 turnovers 14 were just pass and catch?’ That goes to show we got a lot of fundamental work we got to go do.”

The next game for the Lady Lions was on the road where they have only won once this season. They played the University of Central Arkansas on Feb. 4 at 2 p.m. in the Farris Center.

“We do have to get ready for Central Arkansas, But I guess we have to pay going forward attention to us” said Gauff. “Now our girls have shown great resiliency throughout this season. Now their resiliency is being tested. We had a seven or six-point lead at halftime. We got beat by basically about 18 in here tonight. So, they whipped us and it is primarily I thought it was two things: turnovers and there at the end our effort definitely did not look like the team we are supposed to be.” Central Arkansas extended their winning streak to eight by defeating the Lady Lions 77-55. Underwood contributed scored 25 points and grabbed eight rebounds.