GCU junior forward scores career-high 29, leads 12-0 finish
(Phoenix, AZ) Over eight seasons as a women’s basketball head coach, Grand Canyon’s Molly Miller has won games every which way except how her career victory No. 200 went down Wednesday night.
The Lopes only spent six minutes leading, entered the fourth quarter down eight points, trailed by five points with three minutes to go and ended the game with 12 unanswered points to beat Eastern Washington 64-57 at GCU Arena.
The only deluge greater than the ones provided by the Lopes down the stretch and from junior forward Dominique Phillips’ career-high 29 points was the one Miller received from her players’ water bottles once she entered the locker room.
Miller crumbled into the fetal position to take the shower, but hit a high-water mark with the best winning percentage (.893) of any NCAA men’s or women’s basketball coach with her experience.
“My first thought was ‘Not the new locker room!’ ” Miller said. “We celebrated a victory tonight. I just love those kids. Just to see their excitement for me, that’ll make you emotional. They just fought hard with everything they have. I’m really proud of them. Tonight isn’t defined by my 200th victory. Tonight is defined by a hard-fought victory for those kids.”
The Lopes (2-0) were shooting 30% from the field with 14 turnovers through three quarters, but their relentless defense kept them in striking range. Eastern Washington’s 48-40 lead started to take cracks when Phillips, the local product from Goodyear Millennium High School, began to find her shooting range.
Phillips’ 16-point, fourth-quarter scoring binge nearly matched her career high (17) by itself. She made four 3-pointers in the fourth, including two during GCU’s 12-0 close.
Lopes senior guard Tianna Brown, upon subbing for her injured sister, Tiarra, assisted on the Phillips 3 that started the rally and made the most critical play when she grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked out to Phillips for another 3 and a 61-57 lead with 48 seconds remaining.
“They expect me to hit shots and we rely on each other,” Phillips said. “I do this for the girls that I play with and amongst. I knew we all had to come back and tighten up just a little bit. We tightened up on defense and our offense came together.”
The GCU staple of pressure defense robbed Eastern Washington of two consecutive late possessions. On the latter one, junior guard Taylor Caldwellused a half-court trap to get a steal when GCU led by one with 1:10 to go. Eastern Washington committed turnovers on four of its final six possessions and finished with 23 turnovers.
“I would rather take a game like that where nothing is going your way, you fight through adversity, find out who you are and find a way to win than a 20-point blowout,” Miller said. “That game really tested our character, but you saw growth in our kids. They did a great job of handling some things that didn’t go our way.”
The Lopes always believe that they can wear opponents down by maintaining defensive intensity over four quarters. Miller shuffled 12 players through the game, setting up Eastern Washington’s tighter rotation to go 2 for 9 from the field with five turnovers in the final 7:04.
“We were talking about it in the locker room,” Phillips said. “Even though we were down, it didn’t feel like we were. We still had the mindset that we were going to pull through and we were going to fix whatever we needed to fix. There was no doubt that we wouldn’t have. When we went into the third quarter, we tightened it up a little more and we noticed that it was getting a little bit better with each minute and each possession.”
Phillips, a 6-foot forward, is a Nevada transfer who suffered a season-ending knee injury as a freshman and became a more educated player by watching most of last season.
At GCU, the coaches have given her courage to play like she did Tuesday night, when she dazzled from the beginning with a swerving drive and overhead finish. She helped GCU pull even at halftime by closing with an inside score off a Caldwell assist. Her inside-outside game took off in the fourth, when Caldwell’s offensive rebound set up the start of Phillips’ 16-point tear over the final eight minutes.
The Lopes dominated the boards, keeping Eastern Washington to only four offensive rebounds while graduate Jay McChristine grabbed 12 rebounds, two off her career high from 2019. Caldwell added nine rebounds, one shy of her career high. The Lopes tallied 17 offensive rebounds to wind up with 12 more shots than the Eagles.
“That is an effort statistic that I’m proud of,” Miller said.
Press Release courtesy of Grand Canyon Athletics – Paul Coro
