ISU women's basketball team gets win but work needed to reduce fouls and turnovers

If pre-season exhibition games are designed to identify problems, the Idaho State womens basketball team got a pretty clear picture of what they need to work on during their 76-62 exhibition win over Northwest Nazarene at Reed Gym Friday night: fouls and turnovers.

Its rare that a team commits more fouls and turnovers than a team they beat by 14 points, but thats what happened to the Bengals.

With an ugly sense of symmetry, ISU committed 21 fouls and 21 turnovers against a scrappy Division II Nighthawk team that applied defensive pressure throughout the contest.

Largely because of a good shooting night (30 of 56 from the floor, 54.5 percent) and solid defense of their own (ISU held NNU to 36 percent shooting, including just 3 of 22 from three), the Bengals were able to escape with the win.

But they have plenty of things to clean up before they begin their season for real against Arizona Christian Monday night at Reed Gym.

Six different Bengals committed at least two turnovers on the night against NNUs persistent pressing man-to-man defense.

On the other end of the floor, seven Bengals committed at least two fouls.

That resulted in the Nighthawks taking 27 free throws on the night they made 19, outscoring ISU by nine from the free throw stripe.

On the plus side, ISU shot well throughout the game, hitting over 50 percent from the field in three of four quarters.

ISU sophomore post player Piper Carlson put together a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds on seven of 12 shooting and junior forward Halle Wright led ISU with 18 points on six of 11 shooting from the field.

Wright also led ISU with four of the teams 13 steals on the night.

ISU point guard Sophia Covello added 14 points and guard Maria Dias came off the bench to score 13 points, grab six rebounds and hand out six assists.

She was the only bench player to score for ISU on the night.

Kacey Spink had seven points, seven rebounds and three steals, but left the game early after incurring a leg injury.

The Bengals played without returning leading scorer Tasia Jordan, who is still recovering from an injury suffered last season, but is expected to return in time for the Brigham Young contest on Nov.

16.

Forward Kendall Clark led NNU with 17 points on seven of nine shooting from the field while freshman guard Rylie Edlefsen, who led Snake River High School to back-to-back state championships, was 0 for 4 from the field in 10:30 minutes of play for the Nighthawks.

Arizona Christian, an NAIA school, comes into Monday nights game having upset Carroll College, the eighth-ranked team in the NAIA, on the road Thursday night.

The Lady Firestorm overcame an 18-point deficit in the second quarter to get the win.

Guard Alyssa Alvarez scored nine of her 20 points in the fourth quarter to lead Arizona Christian.

The Lady Firestorm play at Rocky Mountain College on Saturday night before coming to Pocatello to meet the Bengals.

The ISU-Arizona Christian game begins at 7 p.m.

and can be seen on ESPN+ and heard on KISU radio..

This article has been shared from the original article on idahostatejournal, here is the link to the original article.