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Home > SECWB News & More! > SEC Teams > Vanderbilt > Vanderbilt Falls to Indiana State in OT
Vanderbilt Falls to Indiana State in OT
by LeAnne Harrington, SECWB.com
Posted: November 15th, 2007 @ 12:34pm
Source: View Box Score
If the lights in Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gym are burning into the wee hours of the morning, let’s hope it’s the Commodores shooting hundreds of free throws following their return from Terre Haute and an overtime defeat at the hands of Indiana State University. The Commodores fell to ISU 77-72, suffering their first loss of the season in front of 3,800 raucous Sycamore fans. Although many things factored into the loss, one need look no further than this glaring statistic: Vanderbilt shot an atrocious 3-of-14 from the free throw line, for a mind-numbing 21.4%. Add to that a season-high 20 turnovers (from which ISU scored 32 points), and one can see why Coach Melanie Balcomb stated after the game: “We shot ourselves in the foot. We didn’t get it done at either end of the court.”
After Vandy’s poor free-throw shooting in their first two wins of the season, I theorized that it would come back to bite them if they didn’t improve drastically before the beginning of league play. It looks like it didn’t take that long for it to become a deciding factor in a tightly contested game. This game was close throughout, with 10 lead changes and the score tied 7 times. Vanderbilt’s largest lead of the game was 8 points and ISU led by 7 on several occasions, but neither team was able to pull away for a decisive lead; Vanderbilt was plagued by turnovers and foul trouble, and Indiana State shot poorly from the field, connecting on 40% of their shots compared to Vandy’s 55.2%. But the Sycamores connected where it counted the most: they hit 17 of 20 from the charity stripe.
Indiana State had a 1 point lead at the half, and started to pull away in the second period when Vanderbilt’s Liz Sherwood went to the bench with her 4th foul. Christina Wirth and Jen Risper kept the Commodores in the game, with Wirth scoring 22 points and pulling down 10 rebounds, and Risper posting a double-double of her own, totaling 12 points and 13 big boards to go with a game-high 6 steals. Sherwood was able to rejoin the action late in the second half, tallying a total of 19 points and 7 rebounds. Vanderbilt had their chances to win in regulation, having clawed their way back into the game to tie it at 63-all and having possession of the ball with 28 seconds remaining after a Kelsey Luna miss. Sherwood missed the go-ahead layup and ISU raced down court, but Luna threw up another 3-point attempt with 2 seconds left that narrowly missed. Luna redeemed herself in the overtime period, connecting on a 3-pointer which gave ISU a 70-67 lead with under 2 minutes to play in overtime. Christina Wirth answered with a 2, drawing Vandy to within one, but Luna was fouled behind the arc and calmly sank all 3 free throws, sealing the outcome for ISU.
ISU was led by Luna with 22 points, hitting 5-of-12 from 3-point range and connecting on all 5 of her free throws. Luna also had 4 steals. Laura Rudolphi added 17 points and 6 rebounds for the Sycamores. ISU coach Jim Wiedie said, “This is the biggest night of my head coaching career, so far,” and he may be right - this win against Vanderbilt marked the highest-ranked team the Sycamores have beaten in the program’s history. VU’s Coach Balcomb said, “Our underclassmen have got to step up and be more consistent, but we are going to learn a lot from this game.”
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