Ball State University
5-2
Butler
4-4
Defense Leads WBB To Win Over In-State Rival Butler
December 06, 2015 | Women's Basketball
By Doug Zaleski
Ballstatesports.com
Ball State women's basketball coach Brady Sallee relishes being able to give his players a verbal nudge to do something they aren't necessarily comfortable doing.
Statements he delivers in postgame press conferences are usually followed by a smile or chuckle from the player sitting next to him who is the subject of the zinger.
Sallee was looking at Moriah Monaco on Sunday.
The sophomore forward is one of the Cardinals' more accomplished players on offense who hasn't fully embraced her ability to defend with consistency. Perhaps she began to realize what she can achieve on defense after helping Ball State grind out a 58-50 win against Butler in Worthen Arena.
With her shot clearly off target through three quarters – much like that of many of her teammates – Monaco let her defense on one of the Big East Conference's top players talk for her.
The 6-foot-1 Monaco's rangy frame and long arms slowed down 5-8 Butler guard Blaire Langlois just enough in the fourth quarter, allowing Ball State to build a small lead and then hold on for the victory.
“If Moriah would listen and realize she's more than a shooter – and sometimes she gets it – well, you saw that block at the end,” Sallee said. “Those are the kind of plays she can make with her length. If she would focus on that part of it more than the shooting part … and I'm not telling you anything she hasn't heard me say or said to herself.”
With Ball State (5-2) leading 54-50, Monaco blocked a shot at the rim from behind by Butler's Belle Obert. The resulting possession for the Cardinals produced two free throws by Carmen Grande for a 56-50 lead with 29.5 seconds to play.
The heavy defensive work by Monaco happened before the blocked shot. Langlois, a first-team All-Big East preseason selection, scored 17 points on the strength of five 3-point baskets through the first three quarters.
But Monaco held her to just one field-goal attempt, a missed layup, in the first six minutes of the fourth quarter. That helped Ball State rally from a two-point deficit to a four-point lead.
“I was trying not to let her shoot it at all,” Monaco said.
Langlois hit a deep 3 with 3:04 left in the game and an even deeper one with 1:11 to go to finish with a season-high 25 points. But she had to extend well beyond the 3-point line to get the shots off against Monaco.
“When she hit the one, I was like, 'Whatever, it's not going in again,' ” Monaco said.
Locking in on defense helped Monaco pick up her intensity on offense, she said.
She scored a rebound basket off her own miss and got inside for a score on the next Cardinal possession to pump the lead to 48-42 with 3:17 to go. Monaco added a 3-pointer a minute later.
“I just let my defense take over my offense,” said Monaco, who finished the game with 12 points on 5-for-14 shooting. “Obviously, I wasn't shooting well in the first three quarters of the game so I had to do something else to get myself going.”
Her scoring burst helped the Cardinals score 26 points – almost half of their total – in the final quarter.
The pace of the game might have been the most rugged the Cardinals have played this season. That resulted in Ball State shooting 29.4 percent from the field and Butler 30.4 percent.
Cardinals forward Nathalie Fontaine was hounded every time she got the ball, but still finished with 20 points and added 13 rebounds for her 21st career double-double.
She moved into fourth on Ball State's all-time scoring list with 1,645 points and seventh on the rebounding list with 721.
But it wasn't easy, especially the closer she got to the basket on offense.
“I didn't see (Butler defenders) coming half of the time,” Fontaine said. “I probably got my shot blocked about six times. You just have to keep going. You can't stop doing what you do.
“You have to play through it and at the end it will pay off. Coach kept telling me to take it to the rim and not settle for jump shots. I have to take it to the rim and do what I'm good at.”
Freshman point guard Carmen Grande battled through a tough shooting performance but still found a way to make key plays.
The biggest was a 3-point basket with 1:20 to play that lifted the Cardinals to a 54-47 lead. She had missed all eight of her shots before that, but found herself alone at the top of the key when her defender looped underneath a ball screen.
“You have to shoot every shot thinking it is going in,” Grande said. “I knew (the defender) was going under so I had time to shoot. I practice those shots because my defenders usually go under.”
The 5-foot-8 Grande also had a career-best nine rebounds and handed out a game-high four assists while making a career-high three steals.
Jill Morrison added 11 points and had six rebounds. Calyn Hosea had five rebounds in just seven minutes off the bench, and backup Frannie Frazier also had five boards in 13 minutes.
The Cardinals played without backup forward Lucia Fernandez. She'll be sidelined about four weeks with a broken hand suffered in Thursday's win against Ohio Valley. She had career highs of 16 points and nine rebounds in that game.
Ball State will play its next three games on the road, starting with a 6 p.m. contest Thursday at Lipscomb.
