WASHINGTON, D.C. ? The University of South Florida women's basketball team came into its contest against Georgetown on Saturday, in the Nation's Capitol, looking for its first back-to-back wins since the end of December when it defeated Oregon and Yale in consecutive outings. More importantly, though, a win would keep USF in the race for one of the final spots for the BIG EAST Conference Tournament in Hartford March 8-11.
The Bulls, however would take a major hit as the Hoyas handed them a 66-56 loss at McDonough Arena this afternoon.
The loss drops USF's record to 13-13 and 3-10 in the BIG EAST Conference with three games to play. The Hoyas improve to 14-12 and 4-9 in league play.
Georgetown came out of the gate quickly scoring the first five points of the game, while the Bulls committed two turnovers on their first two possessions.
Kieraah Marlow would keep the Hoyas out in front scoring all of her seven first half points in consecutive fashion from the 16:39 mark to 14:23 left in the first half giving Georgetown a 14-7 advantage.
USF would make a run cutting the lead to three, 16-13, on two Gianna Messina free throws with 10:33 left in the half and then to one, twice, with 8:14 left (18-17) on Melissa Dalembert's two free throws, and at 7:22 on a lay-up by Dalembert.
The Bulls would take its first and only lead of the game, 21-20, when Shantia Grace connected on a running jumper from about eight feet in the lane with just under six minutes left before the intermission.
The Hoyas would push the edge back to eight points, 30-22, with 1:31 remaining in the half before taking a five-point, 30-25, lead into the locker room at the break.
Georgetown came out after the half and would use an 11-5 run to get its lead back to double-digits, 41-31, a run that was capped by a Karee Houlette trey with 12:40 left in the game.
USF would cut the lead back to five points, 41-36, on the three-pointer by Grace with 9:50 left in the contest but couldn't get any closer.
Grace led the Bulls with 15 points - 10 of which came in the second half ? to go along with six assists and three steals. Grace's six handouts gives her 410 for her career, just 19 shy of tying Renee Bellamy (1991-94) with 429, and 20 from becoming the schools all-time assist leader.
ChiChi Okpaleke also ended the game in double figures, as did Dalembert, as each scored 11 points. Porche Grant scored eight points a grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.
USF struggled again on the offensive end shooting just 33.9 percent (19-56) from the field, including 22.2 percent (4-18) from behind the three-point arc, and 60.9 percent 14-23 from the charity stripe.
In addition, the Bulls were once dominated by the opposition's bench being outscored 24-6 by the Hoyas' reserves.
USF ends its short two-game road stretch at Notre Dame on Feb. 27. The Bulls return to the Sun Dome on March 1 at 7 p.m. when they will face No. 23/21 Pittsburgh in their regular season home finale. Both games can be heard live on 1010 Sports WQYK-AM with Garrett Walvoord calling the action.
