Miami coach Katie Meier says she brought her team north to the Carrs/Safeway Great Alaska Shootout in part to face different styles of play, and the No. 9 Hurricanes came away with an education in their first game against Alaska-Anchorage.
"Now we've got a little bit of an encyclopedia in how to defend Miami," she said.
The Division II Seawolves hung with the reigning Atlantic Coast Conference champions in the first half and out-rebounded them 39-33, but eventually fell 72-55 as Miami pulled away in the second half.
Alaska-Anchorage coach Tim Moser said Alaska-Anchorage (4-1) wanted to make it a half-court game and largely succeeded in the first half.
"Our game plan was to put everyone in the gym to sleep, except us," he said. It worked, he said, until the bigger, faster Hurricanes hit them with the stifling full-court pressure, something they're not likely to see the rest of their schedule.
"Our kids got a little nervous because they don't see it," he said.
The Hurricanes (3-1) shot just 27 percent in the first half and trailed much of the period. Alaska-Anchorage's biggest lead of the half was four but Shenise Johnson's three-pointer just before the first-half buzzer gave Miami a 28-26 lead.
Meier credited the Seawolves physical play and control of the pace for keeping the game close. She credited her team's maturity for keeping the first half from being worse.
"We should have panicked, but we didn't," she said. Nevertheless, it led to "a few choice words" at halftime that may have been heard outside the locker room.
"I pointed at each one of them and said, 'What are you going to do well?'" she said.
She also changed up the defense, switching to a press that proved to be the Seawolves' undoing.
"We brought out the full-court pressure," Meier said. "I think that changed the game."
The Hurricanes likely will not be playing 40 minutes of full-court pressure in the ACC, she said, but it was absolutely necessary to change the pace against Alaska-Anchorage. The element of surprise helped too.
"It's one of those deals where sometimes you don't show it in the first half so they don't have time to adjust," she said. "You wait, and that's exactly what we did."
The Seawolves had 10 turnovers the first half and the Hurricanes forced 18 more in the second, many leading to easy transition baskets.
The Hurricanes held Alaska-Anchorage to just three field goals over the first seven minutes of the second half, racing to a 45-35 lead behind Morgan Stroman's five points and Maria Brown's three-point play.
The Seawolves answered with a 3-pointer by Tijera Mathews and a basket by Kaylie Robison to close to 45-40 with 10:49 remaining but could get no closer.
Johnson's 3-pointer led a 10-0 run to put Miami up 57-41 with just under eight minutes left.
Moser said his team couldn't sustain the slower pace. The press was the difference.
His young guards, he said, didn't see open players and tried to dribble through the press, playing into Miami's hand, and the turnovers snowballed into Hurricane points.
Meier's other reason for the Alaska games was to allow senior Sylvia Bullock to play in front of her hometown crowd. Bullock finished with six points and six rebounds.
Johnson led Hurricane scoring with 18 points. She was 3-for-6 from three-point range but Miami shot just 4-for-22 from beyond the arc for the game.
Stroman and Riquna Williams each scored 14 points for Miami.
Robison, Mathews, Hanna Johansson, and Hallie Holmstead had 10 points apiece for Alaska-Anchorage.
