On Thursday night, the SFU women’s basketball team hosted Concordia University on Celebrate Diversity T-shirt Giveaway night. While many fans received T-shirts, the game itself was far from desirable, as the Clan got outplayed on both ends of the floor. While the game was within single digits after the first half, a slow third quarter ended any opportunity for SFU to pull off the comeback, as they eventually lost 72–55.
Sophie Swant kept the Clan in the game for the first half, as she was tied for the game high with Caveliers’ guard Danielle Hartzog with 11 points in the first two quarters. Swant currently leads SFU with 14.7 points per game this season.
As the teams went into the break, however, the Clan saw themselves down 38–29.
While things may have been expected to improve in the second half, they didn’t. The Cavaliers pushed their lead up to 16 points in the first few minutes of the third quarter, and never looked back. SFU struggled on offence in the frame, scoring only six points. The teams went into the fourth quarter with a score of 54–35, in a game that was all but over. SFU would eventually lose the game 72–55, being down by as much as 21 in the process.
Swant finished the game with 19 points on 7–10 shooting from the field. Tayla Jackson was the only other SFU player in double digits, finishing the game with 13 points.
Head coach Bruce Langford summed up the issue of the night, saying, “I thought we got out-competed. We got annihilated on the boards.” Annihilated on the boards they did, as Concordia outrebounded Simon Fraser 44–23 in the game. Even more shocking, however, was the fact that the Cavaliers had more offensive rebounds than the Clan had defensive rebounds, by a margin of 20–16. When asked about this, coach Langford responded with, “We have no hope if we give [another team] 20 offensive boards.”
Roster numbers have been an issue all season, and may become more and more of a factor as the season wears on. When asked if a short bench is hurting SFU’s chances of winning as we enter the last month of the regular season, coach Langford responded, “I’m wondering, ‘why did we come out and play like that?’ We didn’t play like that in Alaska last week . . . Are we tired? Maybe.”
With the loss, the Clan slipped to 4–9 in conference play, and eighth place in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Playoffs are still within reach, as the top six teams in the conference qualify. Unfortunately for SFU, Concordia currently sits in the sixth spot with a 6–7 conference record. They will next host Western Oregon University, who have an identical 4–9 conference record as the Clan. The game is on Saturday, February 3 at 7 p.m.
