STARKVILLE — Diamber Johnson knows what it’s like to be targeted.
As the leading scorer in the Southeastern Conference entering the weekend, the Mississippi State University senior guard has seen her share of defensive attention this season.
On Sunday, the No. 19 University of Georgia women’s basketball team’s game plan was to take Johnson out of the equation and to make everything she attempted difficult.
Mission accomplished.
Anne Marie Armstrong matched a career-high with 22 points, and Georgia held Johnson more than seven points below her scoring average en route to a 68-51 victory before a crowd of 1,297 at Humphrey Coliseum.
“I didn’t know that is what they were going to do, but once the game started and I saw that is what they were doing, I was like, ‘OK, my game plan has changed,’ ” Johnson said.
Khaalidah Miller had 17 points, four rebounds, and three assists, and Jasmine Mitchell added 12 points and nine rebounds to help Georgia (15-3, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) win its third-straight game. Georgia earned the victory despite losing junior point guard Jasmine James to an apparent knee injury in the first half.
The loss of James could have played a bigger role, as she opened the game sharing responsibilities guarding Johnson, who entered the game leading the SEC at 17.6 points per game. But Miller and freshman guard Erika Ford (eight points, five rebounds) more than picked up the slack in an overall strong defensive effort.
“They play so well off the ball screens, and so much of what they do is driven from the usage of ball screens, that we thought it was important we trap effectively (at the top of the key),” Georgia coach Andy Landers said. “I think that drove the outcome of the game. We were effective after even they got it out of the trap and passed it. We came up with a few turnovers on bad passes.”
Georgia hounded Johnson for all 15 minutes in the first half, forcing her to miss all three shots she attempted. After James had to be helped off the court with 6 minutes, 2 seconds to go in the first half, Ford came in and followed the same plan, which was to stick to Johnson and try to trap her up top. The strategy was designed to take away the high ball screen Johnson usually works off into space to create an open shot for herself or to get a teammate involved. Georgia extended its defense even after the initial trap, as the second defender — typically a post player — did her best to stay with Johnson as she worked in either direction to avoid the double-team.
When Johnson or any of MSU’s other point guards avoided the high trap, Georgia’s second line of defense stepped up and pressured the next pass, many times coming from behind or making a deflection to force a turnover. The result was a 29-12 edge in points off 22 MSU turnovers.
MSU coach Sharon Fanning-Otis said she would have liked Johnson to have been more aggressive in the first half in looking for her shot.
“Every team in this league has athletes, and they are going to swarm you and play awfully hard,” Fanning-Otis said. “Hopefully we all learn from this and get better so we have a little better balance.”
Senior guard Meredith Mitchell (four points, six rebounds, five assists, two steals in 40 minutes) didn’t have a hand in guarding Johnson, but she said Georgia accomplished its goal of limiting Johnson’s looks at the basket.
“I think we did a good job of that in the first half,” Mitchell said. “She is a very quick player, so it is kind of difficult to trap her, especially with one of our post players being the main one who was trying to get the trap on her. I think we did a decent job of rotating and trying to stay on her.”
MSU (11-6, 1-3) made up for Johnson’s scoreless first half by shooting 52.4 percent (11 of 21). If not for 13 turnovers, MSU would have been much closer than a 34-26 halftime deficit. Porsha Porter and Kendra Grant helped keep MSU in the game with eight points apiece.
But MSU couldn’t keep as hot a shooting touch in the second half. Coupled with Georgia’s rebounding edge (23-16 in the second half, 40-29 overall) and the fact that Johnson didn’t score her first points until there was 8:39 left in the game, MSU couldn’t get any closer than seven points early in the half and trailed for double digits for just about the entire final 20 minutes.
Johnson said she wasn’t going to force her offense in the first half and did her best to get teammates open looks. In the second half, she worked free for three straight jump shots in a span of 1:03, but that flurry wasn’t enough to spark MSU, which already trailed 51-34 by the time she hit her first shot.
“I thought it was more than that,” Mitchell said of Johnson’s final scoring total. “It seemed like she scored a lot more. It wasn’t that we got a trap on her, it was that we had two players attacking and going at her and that got the ball out of her hands.
“I think effort wise I would give us an ‘A’ (on defense). In terms of executing, we didn’t get the trap on as much as we would have liked, we gave up some open shots and they hit some layups, and we didn’t rotate, but overall I would give us a B-minus.”
Porter paced MSU, whose 46-percent shooting percentage from the field was its second-best of the season, with 12 points. She also had five rebounds. Grant had 10 points, four rebounds, and three steals, while Johnson had 10 points, five assists, and two steals. Johnson became the 21st player in school history with 900 career points (904).
MSU will return to action at 7 Thursday at the University of Mississippi.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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