USF Women's Basketball Falls 68-62 to Middle Tennessee State

The Bulls haven’t won all season without scoring more than 70 points and have always lost while scoring 70 points or fewer. That trend continued tonight as the Bulls fell to the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders 68-62.

USF (5-5) had a decent game shooting at 43% but just committed too many turnovers (17), which the Blue Raiders turned into 21 points. USF dominated inside however, collecting 42 rebounds to the Blue Raiders 29 and scored 17 second chance points, while MTSU registered none. The Blue Raiders seemed to hit three-pointers at exactly the right moment, finishing 8-16 from downtown.

Freshman center Katelyn Weber scored a career-high of 12 points for the Bulls and had a good game defensively too. “I was pretty comfortable because we have a strong team and I like playing with them,” she said of her performance. Junior guard Tamara Taylor led the Bulls with a career-high of 22 points. No one else reached double digits for the Bulls in scoring, but sophomore forward Alisia Jenkins had a huge game on the boards collecting a career-high of 15 rebounds. It was a career-high kind of night, but still not good enough from the Bulls.

“The turnovers are just unacceptable, especially from the point guards,” said Coach Jose Fernandez. “I truly believe you get what you deserve and there’s a reason we’re playing a little bit of catch up,” he said about what he believes has been a lack of effort from the Bulls lately.

Middle Tennessee State (8-3) has now won seven in a row, after beating UCF 63-51 on Monday in Orlando. Senior forward Ebony Rowe, pre-season All-American, dominated the Bulls and registered a double-double with 25 points and 11 rebounds. Back in in 2010, she had a similar stat line (25 points, 16 rebounds) in her first ever college game, which just so happened to also be against the Bulls.

The Bulls will travel to South Carolina on Saturday to take on the College of Charleston in their last non-conference game of the year.