Gophers coach Pam Borton used senior guard Emily Fox at point guard for much of Minnesota’s 56-43 loss to Purdue on Thursday.

Borton thought Fox played a great game — while junior Brittany McCoy, the starting point guard played only 22 minutes. Fox took only eight shots, but made six of them, including two three-pointers early in the game.

Fox also had six assists and zero turnovers.

McCoy? She was one of six from the field — she made her only three-point try — for three points. She had one assist, one turnover, two steals and one rebound.

Here’s Borton, asked why a hot Fox shot so little:  ”She plays at the point, she brings the ball up the floor, she is running the team, she is being double-teamed the whole game, I thought she took the shots that she had.

“I thought she took very great shots. I thought she had eight great shots. A lot of times during games she has taken more shots and they are not good shots. … If she can six for eight every game, we are going to be in good shape.

“I thought Emmy had a great game all-around, on both ends of the floor. She had eight of our first 10 points of the game. So she is the one that kept us in the game single-handedly. It was great to see her kind of break out of her shell. Hopefully, this will last for the rest of the season.”

<Borton said the Gophers have to get more players involved in making shots.

Wonder how long McCoy will keep starting. She is making only 30.1 percent of her shots from the field. In the game before Purdue, she was 1 of 7 in 25 minutes and had zero assists. If McCoy is not getting assists at least her value on the court is minimal.

Go back three games, she played only 12 minutes against the Buckeyes. McCoy made her only shot but had zero assists and four turnovers. Ouch.

The player who seems to be getting most of McCoy’s minutes is Kiara Buford. She can shoot from anywhere and can get hot and make a few in a row.

POST PROBLEMS

Center Ashley Ellis-Milan and forward Jackie Voigt each had four turnovers in the loss to Purdue.

“Our post players have been some of our best passers all season,” Borton said.  ”They continue to try to get ball inside to each other. Their  turnovers were against [Purdue’s] long, athletic post players. The other teams we played, those passes got in there and Ashley was able to score.”

Borton said it’s tough to win on the road in the Big Ten. “We played a great game at Ohio State [and] we beat Michigan [at home]. So I don’t think it is time to panic.”

FOX TALK

Fox said the Gophers are at their best when the players work together.

“[Thursday] night it just wasn’t there” against Purdue, she said. “We haven’t played consistent games in a row where everyone is playing well. Purdue played very well, but we did not have our best game. If we want to finish the Big Ten strong, we got to play a lot better.”

Fox is confident the Gophers can. “The Big Ten is full of great teams and every game is going to be a battle,” she said. “We just have to learn from this Purdue game because we know we can play with Ohio State and the top teams in the conf, so we just got to bounce back.”

Fox said the Gophers had made rebounding their priority the past couple games, but the Boilermakers took that strength away.

“Teams are catching up to that,” Fox said. “That’s what we do, is rebounding. So we are just going to have to adjust.”

And quickly.

“We can’t overlook Northwestern,” Fox said. “They are a good team. They beat Wisconsin already. All their games have been close.”

Fox must have been listening to her coach talk about the Wildcats. 

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 11:44 pm and is filed under Gophers women's basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.