A cold-shooting night and a tough Big Ten opponent were too much for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team in a 66-34 loss to Purdue on Thursday at McKenzie Arena.
UTC (1-3) shot just 14-of-64 from the field and gave up 26 points on 21 turnovers against the bigger and faster Boilermakers (2-0). The Mocs have lost two straight home games, falling 84-55 to Hampton last Saturday.
“We’ve got to cut down on turnovers, and details has got to be our focus moving forward,” senior guard Lakelyn Bouldin said. “If we can take care of little details, we’ll see improvements.”
After an early bit of back-and-forth play, Purdue began to take control by hitting 78% of its shots in the first quarter to lead 26-12 going into second. Ae’Rianna Harris in the post was a key player during the early run.
“We always talk about the need to initiate and dictate on offense and defense. I felt we did that by going down low to Harris, who scored 10 points in the first quarter,” Purdue coach Sharon Versyp said. “I just liked how hard our kids played. They played hard every single second.”