Jasmyne Roberts scores season-high 21 points as UM women rout Wake Forest 77-47

Like most high-level athletes these days, the University of Miami women’s basketball players wear GPS fitness trackers during practices and games, and coach Katie Meier was not pleased with the readings she saw as the Hurricanes lost their first two ACC games of the season last week to Louisville and Boston College.

Meier felt her players were not giving maximum effort and let them know with stern words and printouts of their sub-par max speed readings. Junior guard Jasmyne Roberts took the criticism to heart, and vowed to “be a dog, be aggressive on both ends of the floor,” against Wake Forest on Sunday afternoon.

She went 9-of-11 for a season-high 21 points to lead the Hurricanes to a 77-47 rout of the Demon Deacons. Her point total was more than double her season average of 10.8. She also had five rebounds and three steals.

“Jas set the tone, and it was so wonderful to see,” Meier said. “I noticed a real change in Jas and Ja’Leah (Williams). After that Boston College game we had some tough conversations, the whole team, I know the players had some in the locker room, too, without the coaches. It was like, `Who do we think we are? We need to be humble.’ We responded a game late to the New Year’s Eve loss (to Louisville), and that’s a shame.

“So, now we’ve got to go do something special on this road trip coming up (against Virginia Tech and Notre Dame) to redeem ourselves.”

Meier said she sensed her team was more focused on Sunday than it had been in recent weeks, and it showed. Roberts came out on fire, hitting four of her first five shots for 10 first-quarter points. Meier said the rest of the team fed off her energy and effort.

“I just shifted my mentality,” Roberts said. “Coach has been telling me to play harder and everything else will come and so, from the beginning (Sunday) I was looking for my shots more, being more of an aggressive scorer. I came in with that mentality after coming off two losses, needing this win.”

UM (11-3) leads the ACC in scoring defense, allowing 56.4 points per game, and is one of four ACC teams to force more than 20 turnovers per game. The Hurricanes’ tenacious defense was a factor again on Sunday as the team forced 19 turnovers and combined for a school-record 13 blocks.

The Hurricanes held the Demon Deacons to 29 percent shooting in the first quarter and led 20-7, but the momentum swung in Wake’s direction at the beginning of the second quarter. The Demon Deacons (4-11) used an 8-0 run to close the deficit to three points but went 2-of-11 the rest of the half and Miami stretched the lead to 34-26 at halftime.

An 11-0 Miami run early in the second half gave the Hurricanes a 19-point lead that was never challenged the rest of the afternoon.

Wake Forest guard Elise Williams, who was coming off a career-high 29 points against 13^th-ranked Virginia Tech last week, was benched for the first half for undisclosed reasons, played only six minutes in the second half and was scoreless.

“A really great performance from Elise Williams the last game, and obviously, she didn’t play the first half and that dropped their scoring,” Meier said. “I have respect for their head coach (Megan Gebbia) for making tough decisions because I’m sure she had a reason (for benching Williams) and I’m sure it’s honorable. That’s our job as leaders, to give young people boundaries and make sure they understand what it takes to be a high-level person. I respect that. We took advantage of it, but I think we were going to play really well regardless.”

Miami guard Lemyah Hylton scored 11 points in 20 minutes off the bench. LaShae Dwyer and Shayeann Day-Wilson added nine points each. Latasha Lattimore had eight points and Kyla Oldacre grabbed eight rebounds.

UM hits the road this week for a Thursday game at Virginia Tech and a Sunday game at Notre Dame. The next home game is Jan. 28 against third-ranked North Carolina State, which is undefeated at 14-0.