WBIT: Bella Murekatete lifts Washington State over Toledo 63-61, as Cougs head to semifinals
PULLMAN – By the narrowest of margins, the Washington State Cougars can begin packing for Indianapolis.
The Cougars slipped past the Toledo Rockets 63-61 on Thursday at Beasley Coliseum and will now face Illinois on Monday in the semifinals of the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament. Villanove and Penn State will meet in the other semifinal.
Washington State came back from trailing by 10 points in the third quarter, took a lead on Bella Murekatete’s jump shot with 3 seconds to play and could finally exhale when Toledo’s Quinesha Lockett drove past Murekatete, but left a game-tying shot on the rim as time expired.
“Things happen,” Lockett said, who noted that if her shot had crawled over the rim, “We would be smiling right now instead of crying.”
The Cougars summoned uncommon resolve at the end to ensure they would be the ones smiling. Beyonce Bea, shooting in rhythm, nailed a long jumper with 50 seconds remaining to tie the score at 61. After WSU inbounded the ball under its basket with 4 seconds to go, Murekatete took the inbounds pass and without hesitation went up in the lane with the winner.
“I coached Bella for five years. I never set up a play for her to take the last shot,” WSU coach Kamie Ethridge said.
Ethridge said she and Murekatete bickered for “the entire game. She thought I was picking on her. I was not happy with some of her responses.
“(But) I had a lot of confidence in her to make that 17-foot shot. She stepped right up and made it.”
A beaming Murekatete said in a postgame news conference, “There is nothing better than having your coach be confident in you.”
While WSU opened a quick 10-5 lead on Toledo, the game was tightly contested for most of the first half, and the lead hardly varied by more than a couple of points. Toledo finally nosed ahead 34-30 at the half.
In the third quarter, WSU lost focus and quickly found itself trailing 40-30 after Sophia Wiard’s three-point play and leading scorer Sammi Mikonowicz’s 3-pointer.
WSU worked its way out of that trouble but still exited the third quarter trailing 51-49. The Cougars only began to assert control when Jessica Cook scored in the lane with 3 minutes to go. That cut WSU’s deficit to 61-59 and set up Bea’s game-tying shot and Murekatete’s go-ahead.
“We tried to get around their screens. We had a hand up,” Rockets coach Tricia Cullop said of defending Murekatete. “But she made it. She’s a good basketball player.”
After the game, Cullop was still analysing the game, regardless of the outcome.
“When you leave a game, you want to know you left everything out there,” Cullop said. “My team left everything out there.”
She said of the Cougars heading to the WBIT Final Four, “They have got a great shot to win this thing. I wish them the very best.”
The box score suggests the difficulty WSU had overcoming Toledo. The Rockets outscored WSU in the lane 34-22, in second-chance points 7-6, iand in points from the bench 22-11.
Ethridge characterized the game as a “slugfest” and pointed out that in the second half each team went deep into the shot clock on many possessions.
Backing Mikonowicz for Toledo were Hannah Noveroske, with 14 points in the paint, and Lockett with 12. Ethridge said it was big for the Cougars that Lockett got all those points in the first half and they held her scoreless after the break.
Eleanora Villa paced WSU with 15 points. Tara Wallack added 14, and Murekatete was WSU’s third double-figure scorer with 11.
With the WBIT Final Four being held at Butler University’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the Hickory Huskers won the Indiana state championship in the movie Hoosiers, Ethridge said of her team “we’re going to have to spend some time watching Hoosiers. They’ve got no idea of the arena we’re going into.”
And, of course, if the Cougars do watch Hoosiers they will hear Gene Hackman’s character, coach Norman Dale, tell his team before the championship game what he could have told either WSU or Toledo after their war.
“If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game. In my book, we’re gonna be winners.”