TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Hot shooting early turned cool on the Sycamores Friday night as Indiana State dropped a 59-56 Missouri Valley Conference game to Evansville at the Hulman Center.
 
Indiana State (11-16, 5-11) was led by the 14 points out of both Tamara Lee and Ashli O'Neal but couldn't contain Kerri Gasper's career night of 34 points in the disappointing loss.
 
The most disappointing of those 34 points came with 7.8 seconds to go in a 56-56 battle when Gasper broke free of the Sycamore defense and sank a devastating 3-pointer – her sixth of the night – in a decisive play. Lee, who was 2-for-4 from beyond the arc in the game, missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer with 2.6 seconds left.
 
"Disappointing, very disappointing, for some reason, we aren't able to learn the lessons that keep coming up game after game," said Indiana State Head Coach Vicki Hall. "We keep making the same mistakes. Today we even had effort issues. A lot of them are even from our seniors, which I don't really even understand. This is their last hoorah and all of our keys were to contain, make sure that Gasper and Miller don't get off to a good start - and obviously Gasper had one of the best nights of her career - rebound, and execute on offense. We got none of our keys to the game and that's disappointing. "
 
ISU, which took a 34-29 lead into halftime and shot 50 percent over the first 20 minutes, allowed Evansville to remain within striking distance. The Purple Aces, who shot 41.7 percent in the first half, matched that with a 5 of 12 (41.7 percent) mark in the third quarter.
 
Despite pushing the lead out to seven four minutes into that third quarter, the Sycamores began to struggle to score. ISU would finish the frame just 2 of 15 (13.3 percent) from the field. It was Gasper's back-to-back free throws that would tie the game then take the lead with 1:17 left in the quarter.
 
"This is the issue the ugly head that keeps popping up, an issue that we have on this team," Hall explained. "At UNI we had a quarter where we shot 7 percent in a quarter, then at Drake we had a thing where we were in the teens, and tonight, third quarter – 13 percent. At this point, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. I really wish they would buy into what we are saying about defense. I'm just sad that a lot of it is our seniors, not only (them) though."
 
Evansville would lead by as much as seven with just under eight minutes to play when Indiana State started a run of its own. ISU would whittle the deficit down from six to a tie over just over 90 seconds of clock time but could not regain the lead.  
 
Indiana State would finish the game shooting just 33.9 percent from the field after hitting baskets at a 75 percent clip in the opening quarter. Evansville shot just 38.8 percent overall.
 
O'Neal led the Sycamores with nine rebounds while Regan Wentland added 13 points for ISU.
 
Indiana State returns to action next Thursday, Mar. 7 when Southern Illinois visits Hulman Center.
 
For the latest information on the Sycamore Women's Basketball team, make sure to check out GoSycamores.com. You can also find the team on social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.