Women’s Basketball Concludes Historic Season

Box Score

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The best women's basketball team in Savannah State's Division I history concluded their season on Friday night with a 48-81 loss to South Carolina at Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, S.C. in the first round of the 2015 NCAA Division I Championship Tournament.

The Lady Tigers end with a Division I program best record of 21-11 overall. They are the first SSU basketball team to earn a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Title and an NCAA Division I Championship Tournament berth.

On their championship run they went on the school's best Division I winning streak of 11-games. It was the program's second best win streak. The 1994-95 Division II team under Phillip Wallace finished 23-5 with a program-high 12-game winning streak.

Friday's game was a lopsided matchup with the No. 1 seed South Carolina – a team that had only two losses in the regular season, cruised to their first Southeastern Conference Title, were ranked No.1 in the country for 12 weeks, and beat Savannah State by 62 points this past December.

However, on Friday the Savannah State team that walked into Colonial Life for the second time this year was not the same team.

In their first matchup, South Carolina led SSU 60-22 at the half. On Friday, the MEAC Champion Lady Tigers trailed by only 13-points at the half.

"I thought coming into the game today we had a pretty decent game plan," SSU head coach Cedric Baker said. "I want to commend my student-athletes, we put in an offense within a matter of five or 10 minutes today that I thought, for a half, put us in a position to keep it respectable."

In front of a crowd of 10,644, a fast paced game opened with teams trading point-for-point. Aleighsa Welch broke a tie-game with a fast break layup, and redshirt senior Ezinne Kalu answered with a 3-pointer to give SSU their only lead of the game, 7-6, at the 17:01 mark.

South Carolina opened a short run over the next two minutes to take a lead they would not relinquish for the rest of the game.

SSU played the Gamecocks tough in the first half though. With 3:59 to play, Jasmine Norman, Kalu and Tiyonda Davis opened a 7-2 run to cut the Gamecocks lead to only eight points. USC fired back though with a 7-2 run of their own to close out the half.

South Carolina shot a mesmerizing 72 percent from the floor in the opening half, hitting 18-of-25 field goal attempts, and 3-of-4 3-point attempts. Kalu led the field at the half with 12 points.
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The second period was a different story as South Carolina's deadly post work showed up in force, and the size mismatch with Savannah State came into play. The Gamecocks scored 56 of their points in the paint, handing SSU a dose of their own medicine.

"They're probably the most fundamentally sound post players we have seen all year," Baker said. "Typically, in our half court sets, we try to really dig in on the one dribble from the post players but [I] want to commend the post players of course [Aleighsa] Welch, of course [Alaina] Coates and also Asia Dozier. When they got inside, they kept it hot and we're pretty small, so we have to utilize our speed and quickness so they kept it hot and wouldn't allow us to dig in and get any steals and get out in transition."

Over the season, the Lady Tigers averaged 34.7 points a game in the paint. Against South Carolina, they managed only 20 points. They were outscored 38-18 in the second period.

"At the end of the day, you've got to play with a lot of passion, which I thought we did," Baker said. "We had poise there and some intellect for most of the game but I thought we got out of character there which, of course, against good basketball teams, every possession is different. This is new for us, and I feel sorry for the seniors because they won't get another shot at it, but just looking at our program and how far we've come, I'll say to you I think we'll be back."

Championship Anecdotes

It will be a long time before an SSU women's basketball player eclipses Kalu's career numbers. She led the field in her final game with 21 points. Kalu finishes her career with 2,119 points (the third most among active Division I players this year), 384 steals (the most among active Division I players this year), and 404 assists.

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Kalu was the first basketball player in the school's recorded history to hit 2,000 career points. She was the first in Division I history to reach 1,000. She led the team in scoring the four, full years that she wore the orange and blue. (Her junior season was cut short due to injury)

Norman concludes her career as only the second player in Division I history to record 1,000 career points. She finished with 1,029. Norman was second in scoring against South Carolina with 10 points.

During the week's press conferences, Kalu remarked about the day she came to Savannah on an official visit. It happened to be the same day the school retired Shannon Sharp's jersey, the school's most famous alumna's, with whom Kalu shares a birthday.

Norman was voted the MEAC Championship Tournament MVP by one vote over Kalu. The voting, which was done by sports information directors and the media, was counted twice to ensure the results were accurate.

Baker started his tenure at Savannah State with a 6-20 record. He finishes his best season at SSU in a city that he used to call home. Prior to SSU, Baker coached in Columbia at Benedict College, where he earned back-to-back Eastern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (EIAC) Championships in 2001 and 2002.

For the 2014-15 season, Baker was named the MEAC Coach of the Year. He is only the third coach at SSU to do so. Men's basketball head coach Horace Broadnax was the first, and softball head coach Jose Gonzalez was second.

In 2011, Kalu was named to the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) team. In Friday's game, she played against one of her teammates from that squad, South Carolina senior Elem Ibiam.

The 2014-15 women's basketball team is the second team to win a MEAC title and earn the automatic NCAA Tournament bid. The 2013 baseball squad was the school's first.

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Players Mentioned

#4 Jasmine Norman: G; 5' 9"; Senior

#23 Ezinne Kalu: G; 5' 8"; Senior

#44 Tiyonda Davis: C; 6' 2"; Sophomore

Players Mentioned

#4 Jasmine Norman
: 5' 9"; Senior
: G

#23 Ezinne Kalu
: 5' 8"; Senior
: G

#44 Tiyonda Davis
: 6' 2"; Sophomore
: C

Players Mentioned

#4 Jasmine Norman

#23 Ezinne Kalu

#44 Tiyonda Davis

Players Mentioned

#4 Jasmine Norman

#23 Ezinne Kalu

#44 Tiyonda Davis