Cougars drop a tough one in San Diego

SAN DIEGO – BYU women’s basketball fell 60-45 to San Diego Saturday afternoon at Jenny Craig Pavilion.

“San Diego's pressure really hurt us,” BYU head coach Jeff Judkins said. "You can't turn over the ball as much as we did and expect to win. We didn't do a good job at getting the ball where we needed it to have an opportunity to score. We need to learn from our mistakes and get right back in the league race."

Lexi Eaton led the Cougars with 16 points along with a team-high three steals, while Jennifer Hamson tied a career-high 17 boards to go with five blocks. Kim Beeston ended the game with 12 points from 3 of 6 3-point shooting.

BYU (14-4, 4-3) and San Diego (16-2, 5-2) both ended the game shooting around 34 percent. The Cougars finished with a season-high 28 turnovers compared to just 13 for the Toreros.

Eaton went 4 for 4 from the charity stripe to give the Cougars their first points of the game.

Both teams played aggressive defense to start the first half. The Toreros went just 1 of 15 from the field while San Diego forced seven Cougar turnovers in the first eight minutes of play as BYU took an 11-4 lead.

The Toreros came back to tie the game at 16-all with 6:26 left to play in the first half, but two quick buckets from Eaton put the Cougar advantage back up to five at 21-16.

The first 20 minutes closed out with back-and-forth buckets as BYU took a 28-26 lead at the break.

San Diego took nearly twice as many shots as the Cougars in the first half, 31-18. The Toreros only hit 32 percent of those shots compared to BYU’s 50 percent. The Cougars led the turnover margin at the break 13-5, but had a 20-12 rebounding advantage.

Beeston started the second half with a 3-pointer to extend BYU’s lead to five at 31-28. Shortly after San Diego hit a 3-pointer and had a stolen inbounds pass for a bucket to take their first lead since 4-2 at 35-33.

Another quick bucket after a Cougar turnover capped off an 18-2 Torero run to give San Diego a double-digit lead at 46-35, forcing a BYU timeout.

The two teams traded buckets before the Toreros pulled away with a 60-45 win.

BYU returns home to the Marriott Center next week as they take on San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 23, at 7 p.m. MST. Links to live stats and video streaming can be found on the BYU women’s basketball schedule page. 

Postgame Notes

Team

With the eight blocks the Cougars had against San Diego, it marked the 15th time this year they picked up more blocks than their opponents. The Toreros finished with five.

BYU pulled down 37 rebounds compared with 32 for San Diego making it the 13^th time this season the Cougars have grabbed more boards than their opponents.

The team scored 45 total points in the road loss to the Toreros making it the second fewest points scored in a game this season.

Player

At the end of the first half of action Lexi Eaton led the way for the Cougars with 11 points while shooting 100 percent from the free throw line. She finished the game with a team-best 16, marking the 13th time this year that she’s put up double digits in points.

Jennifer Hamson pulled down nine rebounds in the first 20 minutes of action and ended the game with a game-high 17 boards, which tied her career high in that category. She also had game highs in blocks with five.

Kim Beeston scored a total of 12 points marking the 12th time of the season she’s finished in double figures in points.