The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
3-2
Kentucky
2-3
No. 21 Women's Basketball upends Kentucky, 72-60, behind Raven and Lindsey
11.24.2007 | Women's Basketball
HONOLULU -- Sophomore guard Brittainey Raven scored a game-high 18 points and was followed by junior post Ashley Lindsey who added a career-high 16 points to go with four blocks, as No. 21 Texas women's basketball registered a 72-60 victory over Kentucky Saturday evening in second round play at the Jack in the Box Wahine Classic.
Texas, now 1-1 in the tourney and 3-2 overall, will play in the fifth-place game on Sunday afternoon (1 p.m. Central) against UAB. UAB (2-3), defeated Lipscomb 67-51 in the other consolation round game in the eight-team tourney.
Raven and Lindsey were joined in double-figure scoring by forward Earnesia Williams who added 12 points. Senior guard Erneisha Bailey pulled down a game-high and career-high tying 11 rebounds to aid the attack.
Texas took a 31-24 lead into halftime. In the second half, Kentucky cut UT's lead to five points, 53-48, on a Victoria Dunlop layup with 7:25 to go. UT countered with a Carla Cortijo fastbreak layup, and a Cortijo steal on Kentucky's next possession led to a Raven fastbreak layup as UT pushed its lead to 57-48 with 6:12 remaining.
Kentucky challenged again, cutting UT's lead to six (59-53) on senior guard Samantha Mahoney's layup with 4:51 to go. Again, Texas answered with three straight baskets sandwiched around a Kentucky turnover and missed shot, pushing the lead to 12, 65-53, on another Raven fastbreak layup with 3:39 left.
Texas never trailed in the game, jumping out to a 13-3 lead to start the game. The closest Kentucky would get in the contest was one point, 19-18, on two free throws by Mahoney with 8:30 left in the half. The Longhorns then scored the next six points on a Bailey steal and layup and two short jumpers by Lindsey, to push the lead to 25-18 with 5:07 to go. After Kentucky's Amani Franklin hit a jumper to bring the Wildcats to within five, 25-20, UT responded with six unanswered points again, aided by a Lindsey layup and block, and led 31-20 with 1:42 left in the half. Two Texas subsequent turnovers, however, turned into four points for the Wildcats as Texas took its seven-point lead into intermission.
Neither team shot well in the half, with Texas shooting 34 percent from the floor and Kentucky hitting 29 percent of its field goals.
The Longhorns relied on its defense, which held Kentucky to four points in a nine-minute span and forced the Wildcats into 11 first-half turnovers. Texas took advantage of the Wildcat miscues, out-scoring Kentucky 12-5 in points off turnovers in the first 20 minutes.
Lindsey led the offense in the first period with 10 points, while Bailey grabbed eight rebounds in the first half.
For the game, the Longhorns shot 45 percent, relying on 60 percent shooting in the second half when the Longhorns went 19 for 32 from the field. In contrast, Kentucky was limited to 37.1 percent shooting, making 23 of 62 shots.
For the fifth game in a row, the Longhorns out-rebounded the opposition. UT held a 45-39 edge on the boards against the Wlldcats.
UT committed 17 turnovers in the game, while Kentucky had 19.
Kentucky was paced by 12 points from Mahoney. Mahoney had scored a career-high 29 points one day earlier in Kentucky's 92-80 loss to Minnesota. The Longhorns held her to 4-for-15 shooting.
POSTGAME NOTES
- Texas breaks its two-game losing streak with the victory ... Kentucky was the second SEC opponent that the Longhorns have faced to date ... UT is now 1-1 against the SEC this year after the loss at No. 1 Tennessee and today's victory
- The victory was head coach Gail Goestenkors' 399th career victory ... Goestenkors spent the last 15 years at Duke before becoming UT's head coach this year .. She is now 399-101 all-time, and her winning percentage of 80 percent ranks third highest among all active Division I coaches
- Texas is now 3-0 in games leading at the half
- Sophomore guard Brittainey Raven has now been in double-figure scoring all five games for the 3-2 Longhorns ... This the longest double-figure scoring string in her career ... As a freshmen, she scored in double digits three consecutive games one time last season
- Ashley Lindsey's 16 points surpassed her former career best of 15 points, set last year against UT-Pan American last Dec. 6, 2006 ... Lindsey reached double-figure scoring for the second time this year, as she had 14 points in the season opener against Missouri State
- Senior guard Erneisha Bailey came off the bench for the first time this season after starting the first four games ... she responded by grabbing a career-high tying, season-high and game-best 11 rebounds ... this marks the third time in her career (all in the last two years) that Bailey, a shooting guard, has logged 11 rebounds in a game from her perimeter position " Redshirt sophomore forward Ernesia Williams has produced two strong back-to-back games in the Wahine Classic ... Williams, third in scoring with a 10.4 ppg average, has these two-game totals in the tourney: 27 points (13.5 ppg), seven rebounds, three assists and three steals while shooting 10-for-17 from the floor
POSTGAME QUOTES
KENTUCKY HEAD COACH MATTHEW MITCHELL
Turnovers killed us today. They were bad turnovers, too. They led to layups and we have to stop throwing the ball to the other team. I did think we competed hard in the post but we just shot ourselves in the foot today with turnovers.
TEXAS HEAD COACH Gail Goestenkors
Her general comments on the game: We all were very disappointed with yesterday's outcome against Virginia, except for the last 10 minutes of the game when we really got after it and played very intense basketball. That was the lesson for today - intensity and focus from the opening tip until the end of the game. We got 40 minutes of great effort today, and I am very pleased with how the players responded after yesterday's loss.
I liked the balance scoring we got today, inside from Ashley (Lindsey) and Earnie (Williams) and outside from Britt (Brittainey Raven). The one thing we've got to work on right away is our man-to-man defense. Right now, our zone defensive play is way ahead of our man defense, because as you saw today, we get over-aggressive in man and foul too much. We've got to find a balance between over-aggressiveness and fouling and playing hard but not fouling.
On the play of junior post Ashley Lindsey and her emergence on offense: Ashley's working very hard on her offensive moves, and it's beginning to show. I liked her effort today on both ends of the floor. As I've said before, there might not be a quicker post player out there who is able to move up and down the court like Ashley. She did a great job of posting up and running the floor, as the Kentucky posts could not keep up with her. And, she hit a few jumpers and showed a hook shot, too, and that's great, because we've told her that she needs to take the ball out a bit on offense to loosen up the defense inside.
SOPHOMORE GUARD Brittainey Raven (game-high 17 points, 4 rebounds)
On the game in general: Today was a huge improvement over our effort yesterday. Everyone on the team, starters and our bench players, contributed with intensity every time they came on the court, and it showed in the win. We were able to really push the ball today, and give E-Bay (Erneisha Bailey) credit - she was a monster on the boards! We had good rebounding so we could get into our transition game. When Kentucky would cut into our lead, we would clamp down next time on defense and someone would step up with a steal, a rebound, or a good play and get us going again.
JUNIOR POST Ashley Lindsey (career-high 16 points, game-high four blocks)
On her play: Well, I've been known as a defensive player and I have spent a lot of time this summer and in preseason working on my offensive game. Coach G wants me to expand my game, and she and Coach DeMoss have worked a lot with me on my post moves. Today, we had to stay out of foul trouble and we needed to run more and push the ball better than we did yesterday. We did, and it worked out for us.
