GW Hoops / GW versus UT Martin Thread

**Posted by xAC** 11/24/2021 9:38 am

Our first round opponent in the San Juan Shootout on Friday (1:15 PM ET) is the University of Tennessee-Martin (UT Martin). This tournament fields 10 teams, but each team only plays 2 games. GW will play Florida on Saturday evening. The other 7 teams are Virginia Tech, LSU, Missouri State, St. Louis, Florida Gulf Coast, Tennessee Tech and New Mexico State. You can stream the game on FloSports/Hoops.

UT Martin is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference, where they won the championship last year. This year they are picked to come in 4th in the conference. They are currently 3-2, with wins over NC A&T, Western Kentucky, and Illinois State. Their losses are to Kansas State and Louisville. They are led by graduate transfer Holly Forbes (F) who is averaging 11.8 ppg and 7.4 rpg, and Paige Pipkin (G) who averages 11.6 ppg.This will be the first meeting ever between the two schools.

GW is coming off a 54-50 win over Quinnipiac. It’s not clear when Taiwo (who has been nursing an ankle injury) will return, but Loder (who was “unavailable” for the game) should be back. Also, Nya Lok may be cleared for her first action during this tournament.

Looking forward to continued improvement on all fronts.

Last edited by xAC (11/24/2021 9:39 am)

**Posted by gwstudent2024** 11/26/2021 12:27 pm

I sort of feel like Gingras deserves to start after how well she's played recently. I guess McCombs prefers her off the bench

**Posted by gwstudent2024** 11/26/2021 12:37 pm

How about Faith Blethen showing off her range? Looking good defensively, as we've become accustomed to and they got into their rhythm offensively as the quarter went on

**Posted by BC** 11/26/2021 1:49 pm

I think GW won 46-37 though I'm not positive since the stat provider I believe had the teams emblems backwards. Hopefully they have the score right.

**Posted by gwstudent2024** 11/26/2021 1:49 pm

Great 46-37 win. It was a bit shaky offensively at times but they absolutely locked it down on defense. UT Martin only shot 28.9% from the field and GW held them scoreless for the final 4:08 of the game. Excited to see them against a solid Florida team tomorrow

**Posted by xAC** 11/26/2021 2:10 pm

I guess a win is a win, but this game really showed how up and down this team can be. If more of our easy shots had dropped, it would have been a rout. After scoring 21 points in the first quarter, we finished with 46 for the entire game. We were out shot by UT-M 29% to 26%! An 8-3 advantage in 3 pointers was the difference.The biggest positive was again the defense, which was outstanding. We held their two double digit scorers to 4-12 shooting and just 12 total points. The other thing that stands out is that we have 10 players who are pretty much interchangeable, and we can freely substitute without degrading our overall play, especially defensively. It was great to finally see Blethen play and shoot with confidence. She contributed greatly to this win.

Despite shooting 26%, the offense (system) was not bad. We did take some bad shots, but if you take out Moore’s 2-16 and Gingras 0-8, the rest of the team was not too bad. Moore could not buy a basket and missed at least 7-8 really easy open looks close to the basket. Hopefully that doesn’t happen in the future. She was great defensively and had 14 boards. I think the rest of the season will continue to see different players lead us offensively, but that’s more a reflection of balance than anything else. Our first glimpse of Lok showed that she has some game. Taiwo was only so-so in her first stint back, but we can expect some good things from her moving forward.

Our next game with Florida will be a bigger challenge.

btw - in the first game of the shootout, Virginia Tech was upset by Missouri STATE. Good weekend for MSU.

Last edited by xAC (11/27/2021 10:00 am)