LOS ANGELES — San Francisco was tough on the glass and almost automatic at the free throw line on Saturday against Pepperdine, both fundamental weaknesses they'd worked to improve over the last week.
It wasn't enough in an 82-70 West Coast Conference road loss.
Four Dons scored in double figures,
Leilah Vigil tallied her third straight double-double and transfer
Dolapo Balogun tied a career-high while powering a late-game comeback that nearly erased a 24-point lead in the final minutes. San Francisco, though, couldn't overcome turnover struggles and hot shooting by the Waves, who handed the Dons their fifth straight defeat.
"At some point, some of these things hopefully will click for us and we'll be able to get a win and a little bit better about ourselves," head coach
Molly Goodenbour said. "But, you know, we make just too many mistakes, too many turnovers, we don't do a good enough job of putting several positive things together — three, four positive things together."
San Francisco (7-10, 0-5 in WCC) pulled down a staggering 25 offensive rebounds — including seven by
Leilah Vigil (her 12 boards and 14 points gave her a WCC-leading eighth double-double) — and out-rebounded the Waves 48-34, but allowed Pepperdine to go 28-of-61 from the field and shoot 43.8% from 3-point range.
The Dons went just 24 for 66 and fell victim to a speedy Waves team that took advantage of 15 turnovers by scoring 21 points.
"Playing four and five post players at a time, we don't really have guards that can come down and make great decisions and have good ball control," Goodenbour said.
San Francisco shot 5-of-13 (38.5%) in the first quarter, while Pepperdine came out hot, shooting 9-of-14 (64.3%) and scoring 10 points off of five San Francisco turnovers.
One minute into the second quarter, though, the Dons got to within five, and stayed close for much of the period, keeping the Waves within 12. Pepperdine, though, finished the half on a 15-4 run to take a 47-28 lead into the break.
San Francisco came out of halftime aggressive, drawing three personal fouls and going 3 for 6 at the free throw line (they finished 19-of-25 thanks in part to extra work in Friday's practice, after shooting under 70% for six straight games). The Dons also held the Waves to just 7-of-20 from the field in the third quarter while shooting 41.7% and out-rebounding Pepperdine 13-11, but six more turnovers prevented them from taking full advantage.
San Francisco again held Pepperdine (9-7, 3-3) at bay to start the fourth quarter, as the Waves started just 2-of-7 and San Francisco hit three straight baskets, including back-to-back triples from Balogun, who tied her career-high with 16 points on 5-of-9 from the field.
A Balogun layup and a second-chance jumper by
Mikayla Williams (who scored 16 points on 7-of-16 shooting) cut what was once a 24-point third-quarter lead down to 13. With 2:16 to go,
Lucie Hoskova fired a hot feed out to
Kia Vaalavirta on the left wing for a long three to get within 10, but that was as close as the Dons would come.
"You need to try to do something to change the tempo of the game to get back in the game," Goodenbour said. "We tried to put a little bit of all pressure on them and they turned it over a couple of times we were able to make a couple baskets and then all of a sudden, you're closer to being back in the game. But, we needed to not dig a hole to begin with."
Vigil, in recording her double-double, is now only 15 rebounds away from becoming a 500-500 player, having reached the 500-point plateau against Loyola Marymount on Thursday.
"I think she's trusting our coaches and learning to trust her teammates and we need to continue to find ways to play basketball together," Goodenbour said. "We need Lucie to get a little bit more involved, I thought, Mikayla did some good things, but we just need to eliminate a lot of our mistakes and be able to put more good things together."
