Temple women’s basketball suffers largest defeat of the season

 By Matthew Aquino, OwlSports Update
 
It started bad and never really got any better. Temple University women’s basketball (12-11, 7-5) fell to the University of Central Florida (20-3, 12-1) by a score of 68-31 on Saturday afternoon.
 
The 37-point loss is the most lopsided of the season for Temple. The Owls could not muster up any offense for the entire game, scoring below double digits in every quarter and turning the ball over 21 times.
 
“That's not the type of product I want to put on the floor, and we just weren’t good on any fronts today,” said head coach Tonya Cardoza.
 
The Knights pressing defense stifled the Owls all game, limiting them to just 21 percent from the field and 1-12 from downtown. The Owls leading scorer, Mia Davis, struggled the entire game, scoring just one point, her lowest total since her freshman year.
 
“They basically didn’t let you find her and whenever she caught the ball there was a second person there so anything she tried to do was going to be forced,” Cardoza said.
 
Coming out of halftime the Owls showed some life when freshman forwards Kyra Wood and Caranda Perea made back-to-back shots, but the Knights quickly responded with a 9-0 run and took a commanding 37-18 lead.
 
“We didn’t give ourselves a chance because we turned the basketball over, we didn’t give ourselves a chance because we allowed them to get easy opportunities,” Cardoza said.
 
UCF shot 45 percent for the game and 45 percent from beyond the arc. The Owls were unable to stop junior guard Alisha Lewis, who was 4-5 for three for the game.
 
The Knights have now won both meetings against the Owls this season, beating them in Orlando by nine points on Jan. 31.
 
After starting the last four games and leading the Owls in scoring with seven points Saturday afternoon coach Cardoza said Kyra Wood  will continue to start for the Owls and added that she has been playing well and is disciplined.
 
Cardoza was disappointed at how the Owls started the game and thought they didn’t show any fight.
 
“I don’t think we showed up to fight, I felt like we rolled over right pretty much from the first quarter,” Cardoza said.
 
The Owls will look to bounce back on the road Wednesday when they take on Houston (12-12).