Wake cruises past HPU women
Nov. 25—HIGH POINT — Shorthanded and at a decided height disadvantage against one of the tallest teams on its schedule, the High Point University women's basketball team fell to Wake Forest 79-50 at the Qubein Center in a Wednesday matinee.
Already without forward Skyler Curran for the season, the Panthers were also missing center Jaden Wrightsell and 5-11 guard Cyndey Johnson, forcing head coach Chelsea Banbury to play smaller guards in the frontcourt against the Demon Deacons, who started a front line of 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.
The Panthers (2-3) couldn't drive and score without regularity outside of guard Nakyah Simmons, couldn't hit from 3 and were outrebounded 56-30 as the Deacons kept possessions alive by pulling down 17 offensive rebounds.
"Us being short handed hurts, especially since these last two games (Wake and last Saturday against Davidson) we played two of the tallest teams on our schedule," Banbury said. "Our post defense has really been hit. We're trying to move some pieces around and work with what we have. It's tough."
Scoring 21 points on 9 of 19 shots and pulling down 11 rebounds, Terrell was the brightest spot for the Panthers, who were limited to 30.9 percent field goal shooting (21 of 68).
Jenson Edwards added 10 point but took 14 shots. Lalmani Simmons added eight points with a late burst and hit 4 of 8 shots for the game.
"I thought Nakyah played really well," Banbury said. "She showed a lot of toughness and a little bit of grit. She wasn't giving up. She kept attacking even down the stretch. That was nice to see."
Jewel Spear and Alexandria Suggs led the Deacons with 17 points each. Christina Mora pulled down 11 rebounds and Olivia Summiel had 10.
Wake improved to 6-0, its best start under Jen Hoover, who is in her 10th season. The margin of victory was the biggest for the Demon Deacons since a 56-point romp over Charleston in 2019.
The game marked Hoover's first return to HPU since leaving after her only season in 2011-12 to coach at Wake.
"This was probably our most complete performance of the season," Hoover said. "I loved the way that we played from the opening whistle. We attacked the glass and I was especially proud of Liv and Christina, finishing the game with double digits in that area. We also did a good job closing out on their shooters and making their potent three-point attack take tough, contested shots. This led to good run-out opportunities for us.
"On the offensive end, it was a complete team performance. We shared the ball well and worked well to get good shot opportunities."
HPU went just 5 of 33 from beyond the arc. They went 0 of 8 in trailing 21-9 after the first quarter. The streak reached 14 misses before the first 3 went in with just under five minutes left in the second quarter. They made two more during a 8-2 run late in the half that closed the gap to 37-28, then went 2 of 15 for the rest of the game.
"The thing I emphasized with them is that we were side open and still not ready to shoot," Banbury said. "So now we're rushing the shot and trying to hop into it, and that's a lower percentage shot. We have to work on it in practice and pay attention to the details of sitting down and getting a foot on the floor and so all you have to do is step into it and get your hand at the target. We're going to emphasize that in practice. We'll start knocking them down."
Banbury thought the Panthers settled on shooting 3s too much at times.
"I was telling them to drive to the basket more," Banbury said. "We should have tried to attack the basket more and if someone came over to help, then we could have kicked it out. We had good moved and fakes. We were shooting layups by ourselves. We didn;t do it enough."
Spear closed the first half with a 3 to make it 40-28 and the Deacons thoroughly dominated the third quarter as they outscored HPU 21-8 and held the Panthers to 20 percent shooting. Wake enjoyed its biggest lead at 79-46 with 1:26 to go.
HPU was outscored in the paint 46-28 and Wake converted its offensive rebounds into 13 second-chance points.
"We could have had five people in the paint on some possessions," Banbury said. "They did get some long rebounds but I'm not concerned about those. There were times that we were standing straight up-and-down and you've got to bend your knees so you can push people around when it gets physical. We've got to get a little tougher."
HPU limited Wake to 37.5 percent shooting in the second quarter but the Deacons hit at least half of their shots in the first and fourth quarters. Wake shot 45.3 percent for the game.
"We did a pretty good job defensively for a bit," Banbury said. "Our ballscreen defense could use some work but that goes back to having to play some players out of position. We're short on our post defenders and maybe we didn't have enough reps going into the game. We had some breakdowns. But to start, we played hard and we were battling."
HPU next plays on Wednesday at Wofford and then travels to Liberty on Dec. 4. Banbury said Wrightsell should be back in the starting lineup for the Wofford game if all goes according to plan and Johnson could see some playing time.
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