University of North Carolina-Charlotte Athletics issued the following announcement on Dec. 22.
Charlotte's Mikayla Boykin dropped a career and game-high 24, but it wasn't enough as Davidson picked up a 79-65 victory in women's basketball action Wednesday afternoon.
"The difference in our game was defense," began Head Coach Cara Consuegra. "I'm really, extremely disappointed with our defensive effort in this game. We let someone come into our home court and shoot the ball almost 60%, that's unacceptable, we have to be better. When we don't have great enough effort on the defensive end, it's hard to win. Davidson is good. Until we sit down and buy into what we're supposed to be doing defensively, we're going to struggle."
FLURRY OF POINTS IN FIRST
Octavia Jett-Wilson opened scoring for the Niners on Wednesday the first three baskets for the Niners, the latter starting a 6-for-6 shooting stretch for the Niners. Boykin, Jacee Busick and Jett-Wilson each had two of those six baskets, Boykin and Jett-Wilson draining one from deep, grabbing an 18-13 lead. After three different spurts by Davidson to tie the contest, a pair of Molina Williams free throws, jumper by McMillian and layup by Williams with three second left gave the Niners a 24-22 lead after one.
STRUGGLED IN SECOND
Charlotte (4-6) saw Kameron Roach drain an early three to start the second before Davidson (9-3) went on a 9-0 run to swing the scoreboard from down five to plus four 31-27. A pair of Boykin buckets trimmed the Davidson lead down to two as late as 33-31 with 3:29 before the half until a 6-0 run by the visitors helped close out the period. Down 43-33, Busick knocked down a three-ball from the corner for the seven-point halftime deficit.
THIRD QUARTER ACTION
Boykin scored the first five points of the third and provided a later steal at midcourt which led to an easy fast break layup for McMillian to keep the Niners within striking distance at 47-43. Davidson used a 6-0 run in a two-minute span to get into a double-digit lead before the Niners own 8-0 spurt with a Boykin three-point play made it a 60-53 game heading to the final 10 minutes.
VISITORS PULLED AWAY
The Wildcats started the fourth on an 8-0 run before McMillian provided the Niners first basket of the period at the 6:09 mark trailing by 13. McMillian and Jett-Wilson converted a couple of jumpers while a three-ball by Boykin tried to keep Charlotte close trailing 73-60, but the Wildcats defense in the even-numbered frames were too much to overcome.
STATS
Charlotte shot a whopping 71% in the opening quarter but struggled at the 35% mark over the final three frames. Davidson shot 73% in the second and nearly 57% for the game. The Wildcats also took advantage of 12 offensive rebounds converting those into 18 second chance points. On the individual side and in addition to Boykin's career-best 24, Jett-Wilson followed with 19 as Charlotte shot 44% from the field.
CONFERENCE PLAY NEXT
Charlotte will now take the next week for the Christmas holiday before opening up Conference USA play at home next Thursday. Florida Atlantic opens the league slate at 6:00 p.m. Thursday before FIU rounds it out Saturday at 4:00 p.m.
Original source can be found here.
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