NEW ORLEANS - Troy's Kayla Robinson poured in 14 points and pulled down nine rebounds in a 82-79 win over fifth-seeded South Alabama in Thursday's quarfinal round at the Sun Belt Women's Basketball tournament.
With the win Troy (19-12) advances to Saturday's semifinals where they will face top-seeded Little Rock. The teams will play at 5 p.m. (CT) on Saturday.
Troy was Little Rock's lone loss during conference play.
The Trojans led 61-50 at the end of three quarters before the Jaguars made a comeback in the fourth, eventually taking the lead 75-74 with 1:31 remaining in the quarter. Troy's Jasmine Robinson hit a three-pointer with just under a minute remaining to give the Trojans the lead back, 77-75. USA had two free throws of its own but missed the second attempt keeping the Trojans in front by one 77-76.
Harriet Winchester was fouled by USA's Chyna Ellis and made one of her two attempts giving Troy a 78-76 lead. Kayla Robinson made both of her attempts after a quick foul by USA's Antoinette Lewis, pushing the Trojan lead to 80-76.
On the ensuing possession USA's Jayla Morrow hit a big three-pointer cutting Troy's lead to one but that was as close as the Jaguars would get as Troy's Jasmine Sanders hit two big free throws with 20 seconds remaining. USA had two good looks in the end but Ellis' three-point attempt was blocked and the follow-up by Genesis Perrymond was off the mark.
Troy, the nation's leader in rebounding per game, continuing to put up the big numbers as they outrebounded the Jaguars, 52-33, in the game. The Trojans also forced 20 turnovers.
The difference in the game came at the charity strip. Troy shot 93.3 percent (28-of-30) while USA shot 63.6 percent (14-of-22) even though the Jaguars shot over 50 percent from the field (30-of-58).
Troy Notes
• Troy’s made a season-high 28 free throws at a 93.3 (28/30) clip, their best percentage of the year.
• Jasmine Sanders set a new career high in made (12) and attempted (13) free throws.
• Troy has won seven consecutive Sun Belt Conference Tournament games.
• Troy secured 52 rebounds against the Jaguars marking the 14th time the Trojans have collected 50+ rebounds in a game this season.
• Troy has forced 20 or more turnovers in 17 of their 30 games this season and is 11-6 when they do so.
South Alabama Notes
• Genesis Perrymond tied her career best scoring output with 21 points. Her nine made field goals also set a new career high.
• Chyna Ellis’s 99 blocked shots was a single-season record.
• The Jaguars have lost three straight to Troy in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament with their last win coming in 2009.
• Savannah Jones’s one made three pointer pushed her season total to 63 which is tied for the sixth most in school history.
• Shaforia Kines’s six turnovers tied a season high.
Quotes
South Alabama Head Coach Terry Fowler
Opening Statement:
“Great ball game by both teams. We started out really great early, and they had a great second quarter. The game just went back and forth. A key swing was when we thought we had a foul on a three-point play. It turned into a seven-point swing and I thought that was huge. They just did a great job on the glass and pounding us on the offensive boards, which we knew they were going to do. But at the end of the ball game we had every opportunity to get it tied up with three. We had decent looks. But I couldn’t be more proud of our ball club. Our seniors are torn up but I told them I hope we’re not done. I hope we can get into some post-season play somewhere because we deserve it.”
What was the defensive game plan going into this? You closed the margin in the end when they weren’t making too many shots.
“Our urgency was better. Number one, we needed to get over on their pick and roll. I thought we did a good job of getting over the ball and staying on their guards, and our posts really helped us, and we were able to recover. We just had a lot of good urgency. We picked up pressure late in the third and most of the fourth quarter just by taking the ball away from their point guard and trying to get someone else to bring it up. I thought they had a tough time getting into the offense. They did a great job of iso basketball and getting different people into different spots and kind of took it to us that way. They got to the line and shot 30 free throws – we just fouled them too much. I thought we executed what we needed to execute, other than rebounding, and they do that to everyone in the country.”
Troy Head Coach Chanda Rigby
Opening Statement:
“I think it goes without saying that I’m really proud of this team. There’s a lot of pressure on them coming into this tournament and a lot of expectations on basically a new team. I think two, maybe three of the players out there had a little tournament experience, they went in the game a little bit last year, but basically, other than that, it’s a new team. We started two freshmen, two sophomores, but they still had the expectation of repeating this tournament championship. All we needed to do is just think about one game and that’s hard to do for young players. Sometimes you’ve got to learn a lesson the hard way to learn that, but I’m really proud of them for following our lead. The assistant coaches; their game plan was great. South Alabama’s game plan was great. I don’t know if everybody understands what a tremendous team that was that we just beat and what a tremendous coach that was sitting on the other side of us, but he’s really good and they’re really good. So, again, I’m just really thankful. I don’t know if there has been many times where we shot in the 30 percent and the other team shot in the 50 percent and we still came out and won, but it was because, once again, rebounding. We out-rebounded them by 19, so almost 20. If it wasn’t for that, we would not have had a chance in the game. I want to credit Sky’Lynn Holmes for coming off the bench. She set the tone on rebounding. She came off the bench, very selfless, and she just went to work. Rolled her sleeves up and went to work so I’m proud of the whole team.”
On the final minutes of the game:
“So really, that was kind of flip-flopped because the time we played them before, we were able to run them, run them and their shooters weren’t able to shoot shots. That’s literally how we beat them last time. They were more poised than us. They did a lot of things better than us the last time we played them, but they lost their legs because we continued to run them. This game, it was almost flip-flopped. We are playing not as many players as we usually do and it looked like our legs got tired. We were missing shots and they were making them in the end and again, that’s just a sign of a good team at tournament time that they did hit those shots down the stretch.”
On what was said in the final timeout before the last defensive sequence:
“I want to give credit to my assistant coaches because, at first, we said we were going to run a zone defense which is a little uncharacteristic for us, but I’ve lost to the same coach on the same team on an end of game at their place the year before last. He can run some great out-of-bounds plays so I switched it to a zone and my assistants, with a more clear head said, you know what, we’re up by three so even if they were to get a layup, as long as we don’t foul them we can win so we switched it to a man, at the very last second and just luckily, we dialed the right number.”