Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming freshman guard Kristen Scheffler drives in for a layup past North Dakota's Jossy Bergan after a steal.
By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org
When you think about hitting the century mark, you think of scorching the nets. Emma Langford and the Cowgirls did just that.
When you think about giving up 75 points, you’re not thinking about good defense.
Yet, the Wyoming defense keyed some offensive outbursts in the 100-75 win over North Dakota Thursday night in the Arena-Auditorium.
The Cowgirls certainly didn’t play strong defense in the first 10 minutes, trailing by 11 points as the Fighting Sioux were fighting hot.
Langford, who scored 26 points (24 in the first half), said the sudden deficit made them pick it up.
“We got on our defense and got it going,” Langford said.
Wyoming also discovered its shot while finding it’s defense, closing the first half on a 28-4 for run for a 13-point halftime lead.
Wyoming coach Joe Legerski said the pace was fast to begin the game -- maybe too fast for his young team.
“North Dakota came out with a great deal of energy. I thought they shot the ball extremely well and we had to adjust to that pace of the game,“ Legerski said. “It looked like we were trying to make one play that gets us back into it instead of just fighting back into it.
“We just talked about winning the next four minutes, to cut into that lead. Little did I know we would go on a 28-4 run to close the half. I thought what happened was we started getting some confidence against the zone and started shooting the basketball and we started defending a great deal better. Nothing was better than seeing Kristen Scheffler jumping the pass and taking it the length of the floor. That got the crowd into and you could see our confidence growing from there on out."
After leading by as much as 21 early in the second half, North Dakota rallied on a 19-6 run to cut the lead to nine. Again, the Cowgirls misplaced their defense.
They found it again, though, and held North Dakota to just one basket and four points in over seven minutes and pulled away for the victory.
“I think we really just picked it up on the defensive end,“ Wyoming senior forward Megan McGuffey said. “We weren’t defending them like we wanted to in the first 10 minutes. We got after it and then started hitting shots.”
After the Fighting Sioux were 14-of-20 from the field, they finished the first half 2-of-10. North Dakota shot just 42 percent in the second half.
“I think defense is something that we always try to get better at every day,” Cowgirls senior post Elisabeth Dissen said. “I think it is our main priority. It is definitely something we’re going to work on and try to improve at.”
Just what did the Cowgirls do differently to stop North Dakota?
Nothing special, McGuffey said. Unless you consider getting in your opponent’s face and out-muscling them. When the Cowgirls play defense, that’s what they do best.
“We just got together as a group. We’re just trying to stick to fundamentals,” McGuffey said. “We had a game plan going in and we stuck to that and picked up the intensity.”
Veteran North Dakota coach Gene Roebuck said the Cowgirls were just tougher than his team Thursday night.
“I thought we hung in there for a while,” Roebuck said. “Obviously they (Wyoming) are bigger and more physical and I think that wore us down.”
It was not like the Fighting Sioux didn’t show the ability to score -- Danye Guinn scored 26 and Kierah Kimbrough added 20. North Dakota shot 47 percent from the field, including 53 percent in the first half.
“We knew they could shoot, we knew they could penetrate, we knew they had good post kids,” Langford said. “We had to try to cover all areas. I think we did a good job.”
Legerski said they always talk about runs, and North Dakota had a couple of runs.
“They were scoring inside, they were hitting 3s. When that happens, all of the sudden it gets difficult to defend," he said. “You can start pressing out on 3-point shooters, but we knew Kimbrough was very good inside and the basketball started going in there. Elisabeth Dissen had to step up and I thought Diss did a great job. All of the sudden she started taking things away on the inside. When that happened, then we can get out on some shooters and then we got out on a run of our own."
While the ebbs and flows helped the Cowgirls at times, it also hurt them defensively. Still a young and relatively inexperienced team, Langford said defense will sink in for not only her, but the team.
“That comes with experience, just being able to come together as a team and realize that we need to do something to stop their runs, pick it up on defense to get some turnovers and some shots on the other end,” Langford said.
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