by PARADISE ISLAND, BAHAMAS – University at Buffalo women’s basketball redshirt fifth year forward Summer Hemphill (Seneca Nation) had a career day, but the Bulls came up short as they fell to Oklahoma 93-72 in the second game of the Bad Boy Mowers Women’s Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament at the Atlantis resort on Sunday night.
Hemphill became Buffalo’s 28th 1,000 point scorer, recording the historic bucket on an offensive rebound putback at the 3:04 mark of the first quarter.
“I’m so proud of Summer,” said head coach Felisha Legette-Jack. “Summer is an exceptional athlete who has really paid her dues to get healthy and get back out there and give herself to this team. Her energy was so contagious for people to feed off of her, but they never came and that was disappointing to see that. I’m just so proud to see her reach these milestones. Her game will only get better and we are going to try to get this team better as well.”
The Buffalo, NY native led the Bulls with a career-high 26 points to go along with 12 rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block. Senior forward Adebola Adeyeye also had a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds, just one off her career-high. Also scoring in double figures was junior forward Loren Christie who had 11 points to go with five rebounds.
After a slow start to the game for both teams, Dyaisha Fair found Adeyeye with a great pass for the first basket of the game. She continued to dish out dimes as she hit Hemphill for a transition bucket and later knocked down a spot up three to cut the Sooners lead to 9-7 at the first media timeout. A three from Hemphill out of the timeout would give the Bulls the lead and on the next possession she got an offensive rebound putback for her 1,000th career point. Hemphill would continue to heat up as she knocked down another triple and Fair followed with a jumper to give the Bulls a 17-15 lead as UB held the Sooners scoreless for the final two minutes of the quarter.
Hemphill continued to attack as she scored the first four points of the second quarter and later, Christie was fouled on a three-point attempt and converted all three free throws to give UB a 24-17 lead at the 7:06 mark but Oklahoma would answer with an 11-0 run to take a 28-24 lead at the media timeout. The Bulls offense would continue to stall, and the Sooners capitalized as they extended their run to 19-2 to take a double-digit lead before Adeyeye converted on a pair of baskets and Hemphill found Christie on the block with a great pass to trim the lead to 39-32, but the Sooners rattled off a 7-0 run in just over a minute to take a 46-33 lead at the break.
The Bulls offense found its rhythm to start the third quarter as Hemphill, Adeyeye and Fair scored on three consecutive possessions to cut the lead to 51-39 but the Sooners answered with back-to-back threes to extend their lead to 56-39 and force a UB timeout at the 6:51 mark. Oklahoma continued their hot shooting from beyond the arc as they used a 6-0 run in just over a minute to take a 62-41 lead at the media timeout. Hemphill continued to assert herself as she knocked down back-to-back jumpers to cut the lead to 68-54 but the Sooners scored at the buzzer to go up 70-54 at the end of the third.
The two teams traded baskets early in the fourth quarter before Jazmine Young knocked down a triple to trim the lead to 20 but Oklahoma responded with back-to-back second chance layups to take an 85-61 lead with 4:54 remaining. Junior Nia Jordan connected on a mid-range baseline jumper to end a four-plus minute scoring drought and cut the lead to 89-65 but that would be as close as the Bulls would get.
The Bulls evened up with the Sooners on the glass with 53 rebounds each and scored 34 points in the paint, but Oklahoma turned 14 UB turnovers into 19 points. The Sooners made 15 three pointers on the game and shot 41% from the floor and 37% from behind the arc.
