New Orleans, La. – The Jacksonville State University women's basketball team's historic season ended on Thursday night with an 80-36 loss to Tulane in the first round of the WNIT.
The loss Thursday was the largest margin of defeat for JSU since falling to Belmont in 2011, 90-52. JSU scored just 36 points, the lowest of the season and the least since 2011.
Senior
Kiana Johnson scored 18 of JSU's 36 points in her final outing. Johnson played in a program-record 130 games and scored 909 career points.
"I'm so grateful for
Kiana Johnson and the five years she gave this program," said Head Coach
Rick Pietri. "Lots of times coaches will spout off things when they talk about a kid who's leaving a program that might not be totally sincere but they spout if off because it looks good and sounds good but I can tell you with the highest level of sincerity that Kiana was the model in terms of how you conduct yourself in a program and how you bring yourself to practice every day and how you compete every day. I'm thankful to have had the chance to work with her and am so grateful that she played five years for Jacksonville State."
JSU opened the game on the right track after drawing a charge on the Green Wave and converting on the other end with an elbow jumper from Johnson. Tulane took a 4-2 lead at the 6:25 mark and did not look back. The Gamecocks trailed narrowly,6-4, at the first media timeout after Johnson drained another bucket. Following the media timeout, Tulane outscored the Gamecocks 13-4 in the rest of the first quarter to lead 19-8. JSU committed four turnovers in the final 4:49 of the quarter and were just 3-of-16 from the field overall. Johnson scored all eight points for JSU. The offensive struggles continued in the second quarter as the Gamecocks were scoreless over the first 5:27 of play. Johnson ended the drought with a jumper and
Keiara Griffin added a three-pointer for the only points of the quarter. Tulane outscored JSU 19-5 in the second quarter to lead 38-13 at the half, marking the largest halftime deficit of the season for JSU. Turnovers plagued the Gamecocks in the first half. JSU turned the ball over 11 times and averages just 12.0 per game on the year. In the third quarter, JSU scored 13 points, matching the total from the first half. Tulane continued a hot-shooting night from the field and added 27 points in the quarter, extending the lead to 39, 65-26. Tulane continued to halt the Gamecocks in the fourth quarter, outscoring the side 15-10 in route to a win. JSU finished with 16 turnovers for the game.
Tulane shot 51.7 percent from the field and 66.7 percent from three while JSU shot just 22.4 percent from the floor and 20.7 percent from three. Tulane's three-point percentage is the highest JSU has allowed this season while JSU's field-goal percentage was the lowest on the year.
Despite the loss, JSU's season will be remembered as historic and one of the greatest in the Division-I era. The Gamecocks finish the year 24-8 overall for the winningest season in Division-I program history. JSU registered a program-record 15-1 mark at home and the winningest D-I conference season (13-3). In addition, JSU earned an ASUN West Division Championship and advanced to just the program's third ASUN Championship Final appearance and first since 1999. The win over Liberty to reach the final was the highest net-ranked win for JSU as the Flames were No. 73. The trip to the WNIT was the first postseason tournament appearance of any kind for the Gamecocks in the 28-year Division-I history.
"There is a litany of things that this team accomplished this year and no one can those things away from them," added Pietri. "With that said, you don't want to go out the way we went out tonight and I'm really sad and disappointed for that."
