WOMEN’S BASKETBALL: Turnovers hurt Ball State in loss to Pittsburgh

Senior forward Katie Murphy tries to keep the ball away from a Pittsburgh player on Nov. 14 at Worthen Arena. DN PHOTO BREANNA DAUGHERTY
Senior forward Katie Murphy tries to keep the ball away from a Pittsburgh player on Nov. 14 at Worthen Arena. DN PHOTO BREANNA DAUGHERTY

Yet again Ball State turnovers cost a victory.

Every player on the team but freshmen Jill Morrison and Haley Richardson committed at least one turnover in Ball State’s 63-58 loss to Pittsburgh.

“It’s just been turnovers,” junior guard Brittany Carter said. “We can’t have that many, I can’t have that many. “

Carter had two of Ball State’s 24 turnovers during the game.

Carter said the answer to Ball State’s turnover problems is found on the practice court.

Senior guard Brandy Woody said the team needs to work on preventing turnovers in practice.

Head coach Brady Sallee didn’t use Pittsburgh’s Atlantic Coastal Conference status as a crutch.

“We’re not going into it as ‘we’re playing this team and that’s why we were turning it over,’” Sallee said. “We’re just not ever going to use that as an excuse.”

Being loose with the ball and dribbling too much is what caused majority of the turnovers, Sallee said.

Forwards Katie Murphy and Nathalie Fontaine led the team in turnovers with five and four.

To add to the turnovers, Ball State shot just 29.2 percent from the floor.

“When you can’t make shots and you turn the ball over, that is probably a recipe for disaster,” Sallee said.

Ball State attempted many sloppy passes, leading to many Pittsburgh possessions.

In the loss Thursday night, Ball State committed seven more turnovers than last season’s average of 17.1 per game.

Last season the team began the season with high turnover numbers, which slowly started to decrease throughout the season.

Ball State’s highest number of turnovers came from the game against Bethune-Cookman with 26.

Salle said that when the team starts performing the way they are expected to perform on the floor as they do in practice and start realizing how important controlling turnovers are, changes will be made.

“You just can’t win games with that amount of turnovers, ever,” he said.

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