Glass cleaners: QU women’s basketball team owns rebounding edge in victory over Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS — With the weather wiping out last Sunday’s matchup with Missouri-St. Louis, Quincy University women’s basketball coach Courtney Boyd said it felt like the Hawks hadn’t played in two weeks.

It had only been seven days since their victory over Lincoln.

“I don’t know why it felt that way, but it seemed like we hadn’t played in forever,” Boyd said.

It kind of looked like it, too.

The Hawks led Indianapolis 39-33 at halftime Thursday night at Nicoson Hall, but everything felt clunky as QU went 2 of 11 from 3-point range and allowed Indianapolis to shoot 58 percent from the field in the first quarter.

“In the first half, we didn’t do a good job of really anything honestly,” Boyd said. “It was ugly defensively.”

Thanks to a better approach defensively and total dominance on the boards, the Hawks walked away with a 73-54 Great Lakes Valley Conference victory.

Quincy outrebounded Indianapolis 50-36 and grabbed 18 offensive rebounds. A pair of Hawks finished with double-doubles — Nicole McDermott and Cymirah Williams both had 12 points and 11 rebounds — while Taylor Haase had 11 points and seven rebounds.

“Rebounding kept us in a good spot,” Boyd said. “Our (forwards) are doing a good job of keeping balls alive, and our guards are grabbing the ball after the (forwards) are doing the work for them.”

The rebounding from the backcourt is crucial. 

“A lot of teams don’t focus on boxing out at the guard position,” Boyd said. “So that’s something we focus on at practice.”

The mechanics of rebounding are a focus, too.

“We’re doing a little bit better at reading the ball off the rim,” Boyd said. “Before, we would just run to the lane and hope the ball would land in our hands.

The Hawks (9-5, 3-2 GLVC) will look for a weekend sweep with Saturday’s trip to Illinois-Springfield.

“We need to continue to focus on the four quarters,” Boyd said. “We have to keep the momentum.”