Poor shooting dooms Lady Busters
Audio Highlights: GCCC vs. NEO
Liberal, Kan (westernkansasnews.com)-There’s one thing that’s a virtual certainty: Garden City has plenty of talent in 2013. But talent alone can’t overcame poor shooting.
Devaughn Gray poured in a team-high 22 points to lead four Lady Norse players in double figures, as Northeastern Oklahoma A&M (1-1, 0-0) ran past Garden City Community College 88-71 on Saturday afternoon at the Green House.
“We’re a really good basketball team,” first-year Head Coach Nick Salazar said afterwards. “But we’re a really young team.”
Young is right; Garden City (0-2, 0-0) only returns two players from last year’s 29-win team.
“Our freshman are playing like freshman right now,” Salazar said. “I like the fact that we had three girls in double figures. But at the end of the day, you have to hit shots.”
And that’s where the problem lies.
Through the first two games, the Busters are shooting a combined 32-for-128 from the field (25 percent). But it’s not like they’re not getting good shots.
“We’re getting the shots that we want,” Salazar said. “They’re just not falling right now.”
Sophomore transfer Shauqunna Collins, who finished with a game-high 23 points, led the charge early, scoring 16 first-half points; Garden City trailed by only three at the half.
Collins struggled for the most part in the second half, but was picked up by the strong play of freshman Loysha Morris, who netted the Busters’ first 12 points out of the half time locker room. But after hitting her first four shots, Morris missed her next eight, and the snowball effect came into play.
NEO outscored Garden City 47-33 in the final 20 minutes.
Next up: Garden City at Lamar, CO-Tuesday, November 5-6:15 pm pregame on KWKR 99.9 FM
Final Stats: GCCC vs. NEO
