January 31, 2010

WALLER SCORES 28 POINTS TO LEAD VCU PAST GEORGIA STATE, 53-39
Box Score

RICHMOND, Va. – Senior guard Kita Waller scored 28 points to lead Virginia Commonwealth University to a 53-39 victory against Georgia State Sunday at the Verizon Wireless Arena at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.

VCU, which has won 10 of its last 11 games, improves to 15-6 overall and 8-1 in the Colonial Athletic Association, while Georgia State dropped its sixth game in the last eight tries and falls to 12-8 overall, 3-6 in conference action.

“It was a great defensive effort from our team today,” said VCU Head Coach Beth Cunningham.  “For us to hold them to 39 points, I think our team did a great job of executing what we were trying to do in our scouting report as far as what we were trying to take away from them on the offensive end of the floor.”

Waller, who tied a VCU single game scoring record with 35 points against UNC Wilmington Thursday, topped her previous career high of 23 points in each of the Rams’ last two games.  Sophomore forward Courtney Hurt also added 11 points and a team-high seven rebounds for VCU.

Senior center Shay Rawls led Georgia State with a team-high 10 points, while junior forward Angelique Burtts scored eight.  Senior forward Danyiell McKeller, who entered Sunday’s game averaging 19.5 points per outing, and sophomore guard Crystal Johnson contributed seven points apiece for the Panthers.

VCU jumped out to a 15-9 lead on a 3-pointer by Waller at the 10:04 mark in the first half before Georgia State scored four-straight over the next four minutes to pull within 15-13.

Waller again answered with a trey and senior forward D’Andra Moss hit a jumper to put the Rams back on top 20-13 with 3:51 remaining.  The Panthers pulled within five on a jumper by Johnson at the 2:44 mark and VCU took a 22-17 lead into the locker room.

The Rams opened the second half with a 20-10 spurt and went ahead by 15 on a basket from freshman forward Bree’Ana Perry with 6:50 remaining.  Georgia State would pull within 11 twice over the next two minutes but it was as close as the Panthers would get the rest of the game.

VCU committed a season-high 27 turnovers but still managed to force 28 Georgia State miscues.

“Georgia State does a great job of getting out and pressuring the ball and they try to force you into committing turnovers,” said Cunningham.  “We didn’t do as good of a job as we would have liked in terms of taking care of the ball.  I told our team afterwards, to finish the game with 29 turnovers and still beat them by the margin we did, it says a lot about what we did on the defensive end of the floor.”  

VCU returns to the court on Thursday, Feb. 4 for a 7 p.m. matchup against James Madison University at the Verizon Wireless Arena at the Stuart C. Siegel Center.  The game will be televised on Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic.