The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Southern
No. 22 Women's Basketball cruises to 71-23 victory over Southern
11.30.2006 | Women's Basketball
AUSTIN, Texas -- The No. 22 ranked Longhorns used a balanced scoring attack, with all 11 players in the lineup scoring, as Texas cruised to a 71-23 victory Thursday over Southern University in women's basketball action at the Frank Erwin Center.
The Longhorns, now 6-1, won their third game in a row and are a perfect 6-0 at home to start the year.
Texas sophomore post Aubry Cook registered a game-high and career-high 15 points as she made the first start of the season. Cook (Houston, Texas) was seven-for-nine from the field (another career best) and added four rebounds. Joining her in double-figure scoring for Texas was senior forward Tiffany Jackson (Dallas, Texas) with 11 points. Jackson also had four steals.
Southern, now 0-5, went 20-11 a year ago and were NCAA Championship participants. The Jaguars entered the game averaging just 48.2 points per game.
Texas led, 27-7 at intermission, as the Jaguars hit 11 percent from the floor, making two of 18 shots. Southern also turned the ball over 14 times in the first 20 minutes of play.
The seven points by Southern in the first half was the lowest first-half point total scored by a UT opponent in history. The prior low was nine points by Rice on Feb. 9, 1990 in Houston.
Texas shot 44 percent in the first half, and was led by eight points from Cook and five points, four rebounds and three steals from Jackson. Texas turned the ball over seven times, and held a 12-3 edge in points off turnovers.
Texas went up 15-0 in the first 11 minutes of the game, a run highlighted by six points, three rebounds and a block from Cook.
Southern got on the board with 8:48 to play on a 3-point jumper by Diedra Jackson from the left wing. That field goal broke an 0-9 shooting start for the Jaguars.
In the second half, Texas jumped out with a 13-0 run and pushed its lead to 35, 42-7 on an Erneisha Bailey jumper with 14:06 left. The Jaguars scored their first bucket of the second period on their next possession (with 13:42 to go).
Southern had one player reach double-figure scoring, as guard Diedra Jackson notched 10 points.
For the game, Texas shot 50 percent, making 28 of 56 field goals attempted. UT limited Southern to 24.3 perxent shooting, as the Jaguars connected on nine field goals (in 37 tries). Texas held a 35-23 edge on the boards. Southern had 32 turnovers, as UT held a commanding edge in points off turnovers ( 32-9). The Longhorns committed 16 turnovers and had a season-high 20 steals.
Other top UT performances were turned in by freshman forward Niqky Hughes (eight points), while freshman guard Brittainey Raven had seven points and season-highs of six rebounds and five steals. Raven's (Fort Worth, Texas) five thefts also were a game-best. Sophomore guard Crystal Boyd (Little Rock, Arkansas) made her first appearance of the year after missing the preseason with a broken foot, contributing seven points, four assists and two steals in 15 miutes of action. Redshirt freshman forward Earnesia Williams also had seven points.
Texas returns to action on Wednesday, Dec. 6 when the Longhorns finish their four-game homestand -- their longest of the year -- against UT-Pan American in a 7 p.m. start at the Erwin Center.
Following that game, Texas faces its stiffest back-to-back competition of the year when it travels to Durham, N.C. to face No. 5 Duke (Sunday, Dec. 10, noon on ESPNU TV). After breaking for finals, UT returns to the court one week later at home, going up against No. 4 Tennessee on Sunday, Dec. 17 in an FSN-televised game (12:30 p.m.) from the Erwin Center.
Tickets for the Texas home games can be purchased at TexasBoxOffice.com or by calling (800) 982-BEVO or (512) 471-3333.
POSTGAME NOTES
- Texas shot an even 50 percent for the game, reaching the .500 mark in field goal percentage for the third time this year and for the third time the last five games.
- The 6-1 start is UT's best start since going 7-0 to begin the 2003-04 season
- Senior Tiffany Jackson continued her streak of double-digit scoring games, registering her sixth of the year ... She also was in double-figure scoring the last seven games she played in last year, moving her streak of 10-plus points per game to 13
- Career-highs were registered by many Longhorns in the game ... In addition to sophomore Aubry Cook's career-best in point (15, former mark was 13), freshman guard Brittainey Raven had a season/career high with six rebounds and five steals ... sophomore Crystal Boyd's four assists tied her career best, and freshman guard Gabriell Mattox tied her season best with three rebounds
POSTGAME QUOTES
Texas Head Coach Jody Conradt
Her general statement: I thought the whole game was their will versus our will. Southern wanted a slow-down game, and they were walking it down the floor. Their whole objective was to slow down the game. It was difficult to watch. We want to push the ball. I was surprised that they were not more aggressive on the offensive side of the court. On the other hand, we had to do something to try and speed up the game. I thought it would be one of the lowest scores on record if we did not.
We don't like to play that way, and we made a good adjustment to extend the floor and worked on our press. Our offensive flow was pretty good after we did that.
We did learn a lot tonight. We stopped focusing on what they were trying to do and started doing what we needed to do. We asked ourselves, 'how do you show patience when the opponent is in a slow-down mode, how do you fly around and speed up the game and force some turnovers?' I saw our guards get better at doing that as the game went on.
On individual Texas players: I want to single out the play of Aubry Cook and Crystal Boyd. They played well. I chose to start Aubry tonight because she's been working hard in practice, and we knew that they were big inside. And, Aubry was important to us early, and got us early buckets to get us going.
Crystal has been out since the preseason with her broken foot, and she has been really anxious to get back on the floor. Sometimes it is a blessing in disguise to have them (players) sidelined, because they can watch and learn. And that's what Crystal did on the sidelines during practice. She picked up on a lot of things, as much as a player can improve by sitting on the sidelines and watching and learning. Crystal needs to be a key player for us. She is so talented and it was good to see her on the floor tonight.
Earnie (Williams), who also missed most of last year, is getting better every game. One of the reasons I started Aubry inside was to move Earnie to the "three". She really shoots the ball well. By moving her to the perimeter we had another good shooter out there with Erika against a zone.
On what the Longhorns will be working on in the next week of practice before their next game (Wednesday, Dec. 10 vs. UT-Pan American): We are developing some depth and we can be somewhat versatile. But, we have to be constant on defense and be a better rebounding team. We have a tendency to play one-shot basketball. We are undersized and have to scramble for rebounding. We will have another week of practice to work on that before our next game. That's one more home game then it's to Duke and we have to be really ready for them.
What we'll be doing this next week is working hard. We worked hard throughout the week to prepare for tonight. We did not taper off for this game. We started to get after it on Sunday. Right now, it's good to have concentrated practice time. Like I said, we need to get a lot better at rebounding. We are deficient on both boards. It will be back to the practice floor to concentrate on that.
Senior forward Tiffany Jackson
I was really proud of Aubry tonight. She is trying hard to get back into the swing of things. My job out there is to push her, go against her in practice every day, and we both try to make each other better.
What we learned tonight was patience! In the first half for a while, we were indecisive on offense and could not get things going as they tried to slow down the tempo. Our offense was not flowing well at all, so we picked it up on defense and our transition game kicked in.
