The stat sheet suggests it was a close game between the Lincoln Blue Tigers and the Central Missouri Jennies.
The final score did not.
The Lincoln women shot 41 percent from the floor and only lost Saturday's rebounding battle by three, but the Jennies led wire to wire for an 82-60 victory in MIAA play at Jason Gym.
"When you look at the stat sheet, everything looks comparable," Lincoln coach Ayana McWilliams said. "But it was the most inopportune times when we were giving up offensive rebounds."
Both teams collected 15 offensive rebounds in the game. They each had an offensive rebound and a putback in the opening two minutes.
It wasn't until 1:39 into the game the referees realized they were using a men's basketball. After they made the switch, Central Missouri knocked down three 3-pointers and began to pull away at 14-9 by the first media timeout.
"The biggest thing for us coming in was making sure we tried to neutralize the 3-ball as much as possible," McWilliams said, as the Jennies were 3-of-17 from 3 for the rest of the game. "In the second half, they went 2-for-10.
"But when we started focusing on covering the 3, they were hammering the ball on the inside."
The Blue Tigers were 0-of-11 from 3-point range, the second game this season they were held without a made 3.
Lincoln shot nearly 50 percent from the floor in the first quarter, but trailed Central Missouri 24-16 after the opening 10 minutes.
"In comparison to the previous game, I thought we saw the ball go through the hoop more," McWilliams said.
The Blue Tigers closed the gap to 33-26 midway through the second quarter after a short jumper by Vedrana Radosavljevic. That would be as close as they would get the rest of the way.
The Jennies finished the first half on a 10-2 run to take a 43-28 lead into intermission.
Megan Skaggs and Morgan Fleming scored all 10 points during the run. Skaggs finished with a game-high 24 points, while Fleming added 17 points.
"We've got to get disciplined at doing the little things," McWilliams said. "It was the little things that killed us today. We wouldn't front in the post, and Skaggs started posting us up, so she ended up getting easy points."
Kaloni Pryear, who scored Lincoln's only points in the final five minutes of the first half, accounted for the Blue Tigers' first eight points in the opening six minutes of the second half. She finished with a team-high 19 points.
"Kaloni is always going to bring it," McWilliams said. "I've just got to get them playing consistently."
Central Missouri ended the third quarter on a 7-0 run to lead 61-41. Lincoln then scored the first six points of the fourth quarter and closed the gap to 12 points at 64-52 with 6:12 to play.
"That's going to be the name of the game for us," McWilliams said. "We can't play to the score, we just have to play to the possession. Every possession, we want to have five people out there moving around, scrambling around, rotating around and being exactly in their spots."
But Nija Collier scored the next four points for the Jennies, followed by 10 straight points from Skaggs to stretch the lead back to 78-56 with two minutes to play. Central Missouri led by as many as 26 points with a minute to play.
Collier and Kim Crown each had 10 points for Central Missouri (11-3, 5-0 MIAA), one of two remaining MIAA teams who are still unbeaten in conference play.
Vivian Chigbu finished with 13 points for the Blue Tigers and Virja Lewis added 10 points.
Lincoln (3-11, 0-5 MIAA) will continue its homestand Thursday against Missouri Southern.