The Seton Hall women's basketball team staged late comebacks but couldn't keep its opponents from scoring down the stretch as the Hall fell to Villanova, 54-47, on Tuesday after losing to No. 23 DePaul, 71-59, on Saturday.
In Tuesday's contest versus the Wildcats, the Hall crept within two points, 35-33, with 14:35 left in the game behind the play of senior guard Jasmine Crew, who scored 17 of her 24 points in the second half.
The Wildcats, however, knocked down several shots from beyond the arc to extend their lead to 54-47 with just over four minutes remaining.
The Hall continued to cut the lead until a little over a minute left to play, but the Wildcats converted from the foul line to secure the win.
In the first nine minutes of the game, Villanova shot 4-of-6 from 3-point range, racing out to a 20-6 lead.
With 2:29 left in the first, Villanova held a 28-15 advantage until Seton Hall went on a 6-0 run to cut the Wildcats' lead to seven points at the break.
Against No. 23 DePaul on Saturday, junior forward Terry Green scored 19 second-half points to fuel the Pirates, but the Blue Demons were too much to handle in the end.
Less than six minutes into the second half, DePaul increased their lead to 15 points, their largest of the game.
The Pirates didn't go down without a fight. The Hall's defense forced DePaul to turn the ball over. On the other end of the floor, Crew positioned the Pirates within one point on a drive to the basket with seven minutes left.
"Our energy and aggressive mindset definitely got us back into the game," assistant head coach Catherine Proto said. "We had 14 transition points in that half. Terry Green knocked down a couple big, big three's for us, and just closed the game."
Green scored 21 points, going seven-for-seven from behind the arc, which tied a school record for the most made 3-pointers in a game. Green is also only the second player in Big East history to go seven-for-seven.
"If I don't shoot, then I'm sitting on the bench next to coach Proto," Green said. "But I was feeling it, and I know my team needed a lift, and that's what Coach wants me to do – give them a lift off the bench."
Despite Green's shooting percentage and the team's intensity, the Blue Demons continued to attack the basket and score.
In the first half, which saw DePaul lead by six points, 27-21, neither team shot well. The Pirates shot 25 percent while the Blue Demons didn't fare much better, with 29 percent.
"With each game, I think three games ago, I said we were right on the cusp, and we just need to step over the line," Proto said. "Once we do, I believe good things will happen with this team. But we're 38 minutes, 36 minutes, 35 minutes, and it's not good enough. We need to play the whole 40 minutes, and we will definitely get over that hump."
The Pirates next will face St. John's at home on Saturday, with the game scheduled to start at 2 p.m.
Krissy Wrobel can be reached at wrobelkr@shu.edu.
