Saturday was about much more than a game for the Mason women's basketball team as they swapped their Green and Gold for pink to help raise awareness for breast cancer in the Patriots annual Play 4Kay game. Prior to the game the team met with women who had all survived breast cancer. Despite the 68-65 loss, head coach Nyla Milleson is pleased with the day as a whole.
“Great day, it really was I'm excited I got to be a part of it,” Milleson said. “The reason behind why we did today and having our 'Survivor Buddies' here, was just unbelievable. Today was bigger than a game.”
Janaa Pickard registered her first double-double in conference play with 11 points and 11 rebounds, but the Patriots could not overcome the Billikens offense, which shot 50% on the day.
The Patriots got off to a hot start, winning the tipoff and taking it right to the basket for an early layup from Janaa Pickard. Mason would take an 11-5 lead with just over 14 minutes remaining in the half, but Saint Louis refused to back down, the Billikens took off on a five minute, 14-6 run to take a 19-17 lead with 8:27 on the clock.
Mason would tie things up once more at 19-19, but SLU regained control and the Patriots would go into the break trailing 28-25.
After shooting just over 29% from the field and 12.5% from beyond the arc in the first half, the Patriots converted 37% from the field and 40% from beyond the arc including a 6-8 from three in the last 10 minutes of play.
“We had good spurts,” Milleson said. “But we are not good enough to have three or four bad minutes. Saint Louis is a very disciplined team and they made up pay when we took bad shots.”
After trailing by as much as 10 with four minutes remaining, the Patriots muscled their way to a three point deficit, trailing 68-65 with seconds remaining. With five seconds remaining, Taylor Brown's attempt from beyond the arc to send the game into overtime rimmed out securing the 68-65 decision.
“We're battling. We did some good things coming down the stretch that gave us the opportunity to take that last shot,” Milleson said. “I would put the ball right back in Taylor's hands, but there are some other places in the game that we turned some good shots down. Maybe it wouldn't have had to come to a final shot.”
Brown led the Patriots with 15 points on the night in addition to six assists and six rebounds. Junior Talisha Watts put up some of her best numbers in conference play with 13 points and nine rebounds. In addition to Pickard's double-double the fifth-year senior had four blocked shots on the day.
“We're going to continue to battle, we have another opportunity on Wednesday,” Milleson said. “We rebounded well today, we only had four turnovers and those are some areas that have been really hurting us. For those two areas to be positive, it's something to build on.”
