Wakefield and Elliott Score in Double Figures in 62-58 Loss to UCF

Saturday, February 11

Reynolds Center

1:00 pm

Tulsa

8-17 (4-8AAC)

UCF

15-9 (5-6AAC)

UCF

Tulsa

Wakefield and Elliott Score in Double Figures in 62-58 Loss to UCF

2/11/2017 3:46:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: Stephanie Hall

Final Stats in PDF l Final Stats in HTML l Season Stats in PDF

Erika Wakefield and Kendrian Elliott both scored in double figures, but it wasn't enough as Tulsa dropped a 62-58 decision to UCF on Saturday afternoon at the Donald W. Reynolds Center. The Golden Hurricane fell to 8-17 on the season and 4-8 in the American Athletic Conference, while the Knights moved to 15-9 overall and 5-6 in the league.

"I am really proud of our kids for the way they battled," Head Coach Matilda Mossman said. "We guarded as well as we could except for a period at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter when we couldn't stop Aliyah Gregory. Overall we battled. They are an aggressive rebounding team and we held our own against them. They just shot the ball better in the second half. They shot 20-percent in the first half and came back and shot 47-percent in the second half."

Wakefield had a team-best 15 points and six assists, while Elliott added 10 points and seven rebounds. Shug Dickson scored nine points and had a team-high eight rebounds, and Alexis Gaulden tallied nine points.

Tulsa shot 37-percent from the field, including 36-percent from three-point range, and 69-percent from the free throw line (9-of-13), while UCF shot 33-percent from the field, 12-percent from behind the arc and 62-percent (15-of-24) from the charity stripe.

UCF had a 47-38 lead in rebounds and an 11-3 advantage in steals, while TU had a 13-8 lead in steals and a 1-0 advantage in blocks.

"We were hampered with early fouls, as Kendrian, Liesl and Addison all had two fouls early, and then Jessica had to leave the game to get stitches and come back," Mossman said. "They were very physical and we couldn't sustain that kind of effort against that kind of physicality."

Tulsa shot 42-percent from the field and 80-percent from the free throw line (4-of-5), while UCF shot 28-perent from the field and went 2-of-7 from the charity stripe in the first quarter, to give the Hurricane a 17-14 advantage to end the frame. Elliott had eight points and five boards in the first 10 minutes.

Both teams came out in the second quarter and hit just one of their first eight attempts, but TU climbed to a nine-point lead for a 28-19 advantage at halftime. The Knights shot just 7.7-percent in the second quarter, while the Hurricane shot at a 23-percent clip to have a 11-5 scoring advantage in the period.

Tulsa took a 13-point lead, 33-20, with 8:41 on the clock in the third quarter and again with 1:30 left to play in the frame (45-32). UCF had a 6-2 run to close out the period, but TU had a 47-38 advantage heading into the fourth quarter as both teams had 19 points in the third.

The Knights closed the gap to just three points, 48-45, with 7:04 on the clock in the fourth quarter as they started the frame with a 7-1 run. UCF made it a two-point game, 56-54, with 3:17 remaining in the contest, and took just their second lead of the contest, 58-56, on a jumper by Aliyah Gregory with 46-seconds on the clock. UCF went on to capture the four-point win, 62-58, which was the biggest lead they held of the contest.

Gregory had a game-high 33 points, while Tolulope Omokore added 13 points and a team-best nine rebounds, and Zykira Lewis posted 10 points and seven boards.

UCF had a 32-20 edge in points in the paint, an 18-7 lead in points off turnovers and a 15-5 advantage in second chance points, while the Hurricane had a 16-6 lead in points off the bench.

Tulsa will return to action on Wednesday, February 15 against Houston. Game time is set for 7:00 pm at the Reynolds Center.