By DARRELL MOODY
Nevada Appeal News Service
RENO - It didn''t take coach Kim Gervasoni long to pinpoint why Nevada lost its sixth straight game.
"You're not going to win a lot of games when you give up 80 points," Gervasoni said after the Wolf Pack dropped a 79-66 Western Athletic Conference game to Tulsa Saturday afternoon before a crowd of 1,146 at Lawlor Events Center.
"Our interior defense was horrible. Their two starting posts (Jillian Robbins and Emily Jaskowiak) scored 40 points (20 apiece). You can't win a lot of games when you give up 40 points in the paint. It's not hard to figure out. I'm going to get people that are committed to playing defense."
Defense is all about desire and intensity, and the Wolf Pack couldn't quite match the intensity they showed in a 61-54 loss to co-WAC leader Rice on Thursday.
"We didn't come out as strong as we did against Rice," Talisha Quick-Rath said. "When you come off a really tough game like we did against Rice, we needed to play even better and not play down from what we did against Rice."
And, you can't win games if you shoot 30 percent from the floor in the first half and turn the ball over 11 times like the Wolf Pack did against Tulsa.
Despite those numbers and playing with just eight players for the second straight game, the Wolf Pack hung tough with the favored Golden Hurricane for the first 10 minutes of the contest.
Kara Pongonis fired in three three-pointers to stake Tulsa to an early 19-12 lead with 13:55 left. Nevada battled back to 21-19 thanks to a pull-up jumper by Kate Saltmarsh, a three-pointer by Quick-Rath and two free throws by Traci Graham.
"We knew she was a shooter," Gervasoni said. "Nobody found her the first four possessions. It wasn't a good start."
Tulsa scored seven straight points, all from the line, as it continually exploited Nevada's interior defense en route to a 28-19 lead. Jaskowiak knocked down five free throws and Robbins hit two. Nevada turned the ball over three times in that span.
"We had turnovers and they converted into baskets," Gervasoni said. "Our transition defense was terrible. We turned the ball over in bad situations."
"They're short depth-wise, and we thought it would be a great opportunity to get in transition," said Tulsa coach Kathy McConnell-Miller. "We wanted to spread them out.
"Robbins is difficult to guard. She's not your typical post player who likes to play with her back to the basket. She relies on putbacks and jumping over people."
Nevada cut the lead to 28-24, but Tulsa put together a 10-point run and took a 41-26 lead into the locker room. Robbins had a couple of hoops in the outburst.
The second half wasn't much different. Nevada improved offensively with a 52 percent mark from the floor, but couldn't stop the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa went on a 13-5 run midway through the second half, increasing its lead to 59-38 with 12:42 left. Candice Brewer scored six points in the surge.
Nevada never stopped playing, though, which is something that McConnell-Miller noticed.
"Nevada showed more heart than many people I've seen play in conference," she said. "There was never one possession that they stopped playing. "