MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – Two things that always spell disaster on a basketball court are poor shooting and turnovers. As haunting as each can be on its own, it's even worse when a team is troubled by both.
 
Florida Memorial University's women picked the wrong night to shoot a paltry 31 percent from the field and accumulate 22 turnovers as they watched Johnson and Wales University pull away in the fourth quarter and take a 60-49 victory on the Lions' home floor Saturday.
 
Worse yet, the loss came on a night when FMU was honoring its graduating seniors in what would be the final regular season home game of their careers.
 
Two nearly quarters ended up being Florida Memorial's undoing Saturday. After jumping out to an 11-point lead in the first quarter and holding a 16-10 advantage over the Lady Wildcats by the end of the first, the Lions shooting percentage went off a cliff as they only scored eight points in the second quarter and were outscored 16-8.
 
FMU regained the lead by the end of third quarter (41-38) – thanks to a strong quarter from senior Isis Lane – but saw that lead dwindle as Johnson and Wales began to find its shooting stroke in the fourth quarter as they lost their own. The Wildcats took the lead (43-42) with just under seven minutes to play and never relinquished it as Florida Memorial mustered just eight points in the final quarter.
 
Lions head coach Gregory Stanback said that his team lost simply because it couldn't score.
 
"Our goal is to always hold teams to 60 points…and we did that tonight, but we only scored 49 points," Stanback said. "You're not going to beat anyone scoring just 49 points. We missed a lot of open layups and we didn't take advantage of what was available to us schematically, once that happened, we just couldn't get anything going our way."
 
It was tough a loss for Florida Memorial in terms of its playoff seeding as well. Having lost their previous game – a buzzer-beating road defeat at Ave Maria on Thursday – the Lions needed a win Saturday to completely cement their spot in the Sun Conference postseason tournament.
 
While the loss didn't completely knock FMU (13-15, 8-10) out of contention for one of the six qualifying spots in the conference tourney, it does put them at the mercy of mathematic tiebreakers with Ave Maria and Keiser University. Mathematically, Florida Memorial could still earn as high as the No. 5 seed in the final conference standings, but it will hinge on the results of the season finales of Keiser and Ave Maria.
 
It's not out of the realm of possibility that the Lions could be facing the same Johnson and Wales (19-7, 13-5) team next Tuesday. The Wildcats have already clinched the No. 3 seed and would host whoever is slotted as the six-seed in next week's opening round.
 
Florida Memorial was also hamstrung by another familiar issue Saturday, its inability to get tangible offensive contributions from more than just one or two players.
 
Lane scored 16 points and grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds, and junior guard Airneisha Gamble finished with a game-high 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting, but only three other FMU players recorded points and none had more than seven.
 
Freshman Ixsamar Gonzalez had seven and 10 boards off the bench, but made just 2 of her 10 shots. Senior Danielle Bailey had just five points and two rebounds in 39 minutes and senior Shawnice King finished with just four points.
 

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