Anchorage Daily News

Some coaches use feel-good movies about underdogs overcoming impossible odds to inspire their teams.

Tim Moser uses reality TV.

Before dismantling Colorado Christian College 63-38 Friday night, the UAA women's basketball team took in a matinee that consisted of game film from the previous night, a cringe-worthy show featuring bad rebounding, bad shooting and uneven defense.

"It gave us a wake-up call," senior guard Elisha Harris said. "We could see what we did (wrong)."

Then the Seawolves took the court and did nearly everything right.

Playing suffocating defense from the opening minute, UAA showed Colorado Christian what a nationally ranked team plays like when properly motivated.

The fifth-ranked Seawolves hit almost half their shots from the field (24 of 53) and more than one-third of their shots from 3-point range (10 of 26). They crashed the boards for a 23-11 advantage at halftime and a 39-32 edge for the game. They dished out 16 assists.

OK, so they were guilty of 26 turnovers -- but they balanced that somewhat with 12 steals and five blocked shots, four from 6-foot-2 senior center Rebecca Kielpinski, who now has 200 blocks in three-plus seasons.

Mostly, though, they never relented defensively, making the Cougars (1-3) work tirelessly for open shots, few of which ever materialized. Colorado Christian, which outplayed UAA in a 55-54 loss Thursday, took almost as many shots as UAA -- 50 -- but hit only 13 for a meager 26.0 shooting percentage.

And if that's not impressive enough, the trio of Nikki Aden, Tristan Burnett and Tamar Gruwell completely shut down Talmai Aguirre, the Cougars' silky shooting star who scored practically at will in a 19-point effort Thursday.

"She's pretty quick," said Aden, who did most the guard duty on Aguirre. "She has a quick release from anywhere, so we had to make sure we had a high hand in her face at all times, and she gets lots of screens, so we had to work through those."

The work paid off: Aguirre only took two shots in the first half, didn't score a single field goal the entire game and was scoreless until she hit a pair of free throws with 33 seconds left.

Games like that come infrequently, if ever, for Aguirre, a 5-foot-7 junior who averages 21 points -- and who holds the New Mexico high school scoring record, for boys and girls, with 3,359 points in a varsity career that began in the eighth grade.

"We knew if Aguirre and (Abby) Rosenthal didn't score, they'd have a hard time beating us," Moser said.

The Seawolves, who improved to 5-1, frustrated Rosenthal in the post, and though she led her team in scoring, her 11 points weren't nearly enough to counter all the offense UAA generated.

Harris was unstoppable early, needing only five minutes to equal her career high of 10 points. A 5-7 senior, she did a lot of scoring and a little of everything else -- 4-of-5 shooting, three rebounds and two steals, plus she took a charge to force another turnover -- as UAA raced to a 14-4 lead.

"It was fun," said Harris, who finished with a career-high 15 points.

Later, it was Gruwell's turn to shine. A 5-8 transfer, she knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers at point in the second half and hit 4 of 7 from long range for the game. She finished with a career-high 14 points.

Burnett added eight points and Nicci Miller -- who sat out Thursday with an injured hamstring -- saw limited time but had some great moments. And while Kielpinski had only three points, she contributed 11 rebounds, four assists and the four blocks.

It all added up to the kind of effort Moser was hoping for when he put his team through the agony of watching Thursday night's game on tape.

"They saw how asleep they were off the ball," he said. "I'm really proud the way the kids responded."

Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.

Colorado Christian 15 23 -- 38

UAA33 30 -- 63

COLORADO CHRISTIAN -- Rosenthal 3-9 5-9 11; Verbitsky 2-6 0-0 6; Barratt 2-7 0-1 5; Finley 2-8 1-4 5; Valdez 2-4 0-0 4; Krall 1-5 0-1 3; Allen 1-2 0-2 2; Aguirre 0-8 2-2 2; Hert 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 13-50 8-19 38.

UAA -- Harris 6-13 1-1 15; Gruwell 5-8 0-0 14; Burnett 3-7 0-0 8; Aden 3-5 1-2 8; Miller 2-5 2-2 6; Dekel 1-2 0-0 3; Kielpinski 1-3 1-2 3; Wohlers 1-3 0-0 2; Johansson 1-2 0-2 2; Taylor 1-3 0-0 2; Basova 0-1 0-0 0; Thiel 0-1 0-0 0; Collins 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 24-53 5-9 63.

3-point goals -- Colorado 4-22 (Verbitsky 2-6; Krall 1-4; Barratt 1-3; Aguirre 0-5; Finley 0-2; Rosenthal 0-2), UAA 10-26 (Gruwell 4-7; Harris 2-7; Burnett 2-6; Aden 1-3; Dekel 1-2; Thiel 0-1). Fouled out -- Colorado-None, UAA-None. Rebounds -- Colorado 32 (Rosenthal 8), UAA 39 (Kielpinski 11). Assists -- Colorado 10 (Krall 5), UAA 16 (Kielpinski 4; Thiel 4). Total fouls -- Colorado 14, UAA 20. Technical fouls -- Colorado-None, UAA-None. A -- 476.

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