It was a rough airplane ride home for the women's basketball team after a difficult swing through the Midwest. Over the long weekend, the Judges lost to University Athletic Association foes the University of Chicago and No. 7 Washington University in St. Louis. The Judges were defeated 60-28 on Sunday in Missouri, and lost 73-61 on Friday in Chicago. The aforementioned losses were an extension of their road woes; Brandeis has only won one game on the road so far this season, a 71-53 win at Daniel Webster College on Dec. 1. The setbacks put the team at a 7-9 overall record and 1-4 mark in the conference, where they sit in last place out of eight teams.

On Sunday, in its game against the Bears, Brandeis had its lowest scoring game in 15 years against WashU since a defensive battle in 1998 against New York University. Hannah Cain '15 led the scoring efforts for the Judges with seven points and only shot ten percent from two-point range. This performance added to a poor 16 percent mark for the Judges.

While the Judges kept up with WashU in turnovers forced, [23 to 22] and second-chance points, WashU had a huge edge in bench points, leading by a 29-16 margin in terms of points off of the bench. Despite Brandeis' lack of bench points, guard Niki Laskaris '16 notched one third of the Judges' bench points with five, while only hitting one three point shot throughout the night.

Though the night was low-scoring, the Judges did hold WashU to its fourth-lowest point total of the season, keeping the Bears under 40 percent shooting-a feat only half of WashU's opponents were able to accomplish.

WashU sophomore forward Melissa Gilkey was the only player on either side to score in double digits with 16 points on the night. Junior forward Lucy Montgomery had nine points off the bench. All three of her buckets were scored from three-point range.

Though Sunday's perforamnce was definitely not what the Judges would have wanted, they can be buoyed by their strong performance in the weekend's first game. After allowing the first four points of the night, Brandeis stormed out to a strong start Friday night, as they went on a 14-4 run and were leading for a majority of the first half against the Maroons, up by as many as seven points.

The Judges were up 32-28 with two minutes left in the half, making it seem that they would take a lead into the break.
However, Chicago went on a five point scoring run, taking the lead with eight seconds left to play in the half. The lack of time before the halfway buzzer ultimately proved crucial as a turning point both in the short-term and long-term, as Chicago took a one point advantage into the break.

Despite the fact that the deficit was only at one, it would become clear that losing the lead certainly took the wind out of the Judges' sails, especially after they started the half in such dominating fashion.

Forward Erika Higginbottom '13 led scoring with eight points at the half, and shot four for four during the first half of the game. Brandeis forced 11 turnovers while only giving up seven and outscoring Chicago on turnovers by a 10-3 margin.

The second half told a very different tale, as the Judges failed to keep the momentum that they had established in the beginning of the game going. Chicago opened the half with an 18-6 run. The Judges only made three out of their first 18 shots of the second half, allowing Chicago to run away with the game.

Chicago began to tear apart the Judges' defense, scoring multiple times in the paint as well as from three-point range. In a game which the Judges had controlled quite handily at first, Chicago took in the lead by as much as 16 points, and finished the game ahead by twelve.

Brandeis' leading scorer was Higginbottom, who put up 14 points, including two late game three-pointers.

Also notable was guard Kasey Dean '14 who had 11 rebounds, just one short of a career high for the guard. No other player in the game had more than four assists aside from Dean, who was also five of 11 from the field.

Chicago had three players scoring in double digits. For the Maroons, freshman guard Paige Womack led all scoring 16 points, scoring 3 for 5 from three-point range.

Members of the women's basketball team could not be reached for comment by press time

Despite the demoralizing setbacks, the Judges cannot afford to slouch for long. The Judges will be back on the road in UAA games next weekend as the squad will travel to Emory University this Friday at 6 p.m. and then to the University of Rochester this Sunday at 2 p.m.

It was certainly a tough weekend for the team, but with only one more UAA trip before the squad returns home, there's a good chance that the team could rack up some valuable wins.