Lady Raiders cruise in exhibition win over Lady Bucs to open 2022-23 season

Friday, October 28

Murfreesboro, TN

6 p.m.

Middle Tennessee

Christian Brothers University (Exh).

Photo by: Maya Lewis/MT Athletic Communications

10/28/2022 8:58:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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Four Blue Raiders score in double figures in first preseason tune-up

By: Sam Doughton

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The Lady Raider defense showed up early on Friday night in the Murphy Center and never relented, holding Christian Brothers scoreless for the first seven minutes of the game en route to a 95-38 win.

After rushing out to a 25-1 lead at the end of the first quarter, the Lady Raiders overcame a slow start shooting with a red-hot start to the second half, as MTSU made 8-of-14 attempts beyond the arc in the third quarter, scoring 37 points in the frame. The height advantage between the C-USA's Lady Raiders and Division II CBU was evident, as MTSU out rebounded the Lady Bucs 46-32.

Savannah Wheeler shined in her Lady Raider debut with 18 points, as the Marshall transfer drilled 7-of-12 shots from the field while making all three of her free throws. The Catlettsburg, Ky. native added six rebounds, five assists and three steals to MTSU's efforts. Jalynn Gregory led all scorers with 20 points, including five made three pointers.

Freshman Lanae Riley scored nine points on a 3-for-3 clip beyond the arc, while Ta'Mia Scott also shined in her MTSU debut, scoring 12 points off the bench with six rebounds. Kseniya Malashka led the way on the glass with seven rebounds to go with her 13 points off the bench.

By the Numbers

19: The number of points scored by MTSU before Christian Brothers made a free throw at the 2:55 mark of the first quarter, breaking the shutout. The Lady Raiders would take a 25-1 lead at the quarter break, holding the Lady Bucs to 0-12 from the floor in the first 10 minutes.

38: Points off Turnovers for the Lady Raiders on the night. CBU turned the ball over 25 times, with 14 of those turnovers coming on MTSU steals, as an active pressure defense caused problems all evening.

+55: Savannah Wheeler's final plus/minus of the evening. Every single Lady Raider finished with a positive plus/minus figure on Friday.

21:11, 4:25: The assist-to-turnover ratio for MTSU and CBU, respectively, on Friday. The Lady Bucs turned the ball over six times as many times as they assisted on a field goal, while the Lady Raiders nearly doubled their turnovers with assists.

Blue Raider Notes

Friday marked the first appearance on court as a Lady Raider for junior Savannah Wheeler (transfer – Marshall), as well as freshmen Ta'Mia Scott, Lanae Riley and Meioshe Mason.

Thoughts from Head Coach Rick Insell

"A game like this, you want to run up the floor and nobody gets hurt. You don't want nobody hurt from the other team, you don't want nobody hurt from your team. We got out of this with just a few bruises."

"The exhibition game showed that we were not in the best of shape. We're in good shape if we want to play in half court, but in basketball you've got to run the floor. So we've got to do a little better job of getting in shape."

"We're very talented. We've got a lot of basketball IQ, Savannah coming in, that helped us with our basketball IQ. Tonight, we got what we needed to. We scored, and we played pretty decent defense, we rebounded the ball. But there's so much more that we can do and that we've got to do before we open up at Mercer, go to Southern Illinois and come back here for Belmont."

Up Next

The Lady Raiders stay at home for their second scrimmage of the season, taking on UT Southern on Tuesday, November 1. Tipoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.

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