Monday, January 5
Boards, Free Throws and Balance Spark 74-69 Win for Panthers
ATLANTA – Georgia State blended balanced scoring with solid rebounding and key defensive stops to secure a 74-69 Sun Belt Conference win over Texas State in women’s basketball Monday evening at the GSU Sports Arena.
The Panthers (7-5, 2-1) turned back the team picked to finish third in the Sun Belt with four players in double figures to post their fourth win in the past six games. Texas State (7-5, 2-1) had won five of its last six games coming into tonight.
GSU senior center Brittany Logan had her fifth double-double in the last six games with 13 points and 11 rebounds. Senior guard Kayla Nolan added 14 points and six rebounds. Freshman forward Kennesha Nichols made her first collegiate start and hit 5 of 6 shots for 10 points with eight rebounds. Junior guard Ashlee Cole came off the bench to hit three 3-point baskets and score 12 points. Senior Alisha Andrews added spark with eight points and six assists.
Texas State got 19 points and 10 rebounds from Erin Peoples to go with 17 points and eight assists from Ayriel Anderson and 15 rebounds from Jacqueline Jeffcoat.
Georgia State built an early 10-point lead at 17-7, but visiting Texas State came back to close the gap 29-25 at halftime.
In the second half, GSU bounced back out to another 10-point lead at 48-38 with 12:30 to play and grew that into a 12-point margin at 56-44 with 7:50 remaining. But Texas State was not going to give in that easy and rolled back to make it 57-54 with 5:38 still to go. It was 60-54 with 4:53 to go when things took a sour turn for GSU as forward Haley Gerrin sustained a back injury and was on the floor for several minutes before leaving the court. Logan had just been whistled for her fourth foul at the same time.
When Texas State hit two free throws to make it 60-56, Nolan hit two free throws and then a driving lay-up to push it back to 64-56 with 2:44. The Panthers got it back to 10 points at 73-63 with 26.5 seconds and Texas State finished with five points in the last 13 seconds to close to the final 74-69 margin.
Georgia State had a 44-40 rebound advantage with 13 offensive boards. They got to the free throw line 26 times and made 20 of them. The defense forced 15 turnovers and made 11 steals.
“It was a good team effort with a lot of people who contributed to tonight’s win,” coach Sharon Baldwin-Tener said. “Texas State is a good team and beat us handily in the tournament last year, so we wanted to show some resiliency tonight. We kept our composure and battled all game long through some adversity. The defense stepped up at some key times and we battled hard on the boards. This was an important win and moves us to 2-1 in the league and might help with some confidence.”
Georgia State heads on the road to play at UL Lafayette on Thursday.
Mountaineers Defeat UL Lafayette, 63-51
BOONE, N.C. - Appalachian State University women's basketball defeated UL Lafayette on Monday night, 63-51, in their Sun Belt home opener at the Holmes Center.
The Mountaineers (6-5, 1-1 Sun Belt) were able to hold off the Ragin' Cajuns (8-4, 0-3), maintaining a lead for most of the game.
Appalachian struck first with a three-pointer from Maryah Sydnor, helping the Mountaineers take a quick 7-4 lead with 16:35 to play in the first half. The Ragin' Cajuns responded by scoring the next four points and taking the lead.
With the Apps trailing 9-10, Ashley Bassett-Smith would hit a layup, sparking a 14-3 run for the Mountaineers as they took a 23-13 lead at the 8:02 minute mark. From there the Ragin' Cajuns would hit two-straight three-pointers, going on a 14-4 run and tying the game, 27-27 at halftime.
App State was led by Sydnor's nine points and six rebounds in the first half as the Mountaineers shot 35.5 percent from the floor.
The Ragin' Cajuns were led by Keke Veal and Robbie Brown's six points each. The team recorded a 40.0 percent field goal percentage in the first half.
The Mountaineers came out on fire in second half, immediately going on a 9-2 run to lead 36-29 with 16:31 to play. UL Lafayette would strike back with two points, but Appalachian maintained a solid lead, going up 40-33 with a jumper from Bria Huffman at the 14:09 minute mark.
With 8:15 to play, Bassett-Smith would score two points to give the Apps a ten-point lead, but the Ragin' Cajuns responded with six-straight points, putting them right back into the game.
The Mountaineers were able to pull it out, finishing out the game with a15-2 run to get the win, 63-51.
Sydnor and Katie Mallow led the Apps in their first Sun Belt win, scoring 14 points each. Sydnor tallied a game-high 13 rebounds, while Huffman dished out four assists and Bassett-Smith recorded four blocks.
The Mountaineers recorded a 44.9 field goal percentage in the game, grabbing 41 rebounds and turning the ball over 21 times.
UL Lafayette was led by Keke Veal's 17 points while the team shot just 32.4 percent from the floor. The Ragin' Cajuns recorded 36 rebounds and 17 turnovers in the game.
App State will return to action when they travel to Mobile, Ala. to take on South Alabama on Jan. 8.
Troy Smothers UT Arlington, Wins Second Straight
TROY, Alabama – The Troy women's basketball team dominated the paint with 11 blocks and used that to take a 70-63 win over UT Arlington at Trojan Arena on Monday night.
Troy (7-5, 2-1) picked up its second straight win and snapped the Mavericks five-game win streak along the way. The Mavericks entered the game with the nation's fourth best scoring defense, allowing just 49 points per game. Troy, however, surpassed that mark with 10:43 to go and became just the third team to score 70 against UT Arlington (8-4, 2-1) this season.
The Trojans held UTA to 33 percent (22-of-67) shooting on the night, including 24 percent in the first half as they built a 29-23 lead at the break. UTA got within five in the second half, but never closer as Ashley Beverly-Kelley took over offensively.
The junior guard scored 14 of her team-high 17 points in the second half, hitting 4-of-6 shots from the floor and 5-of-5 from the free throw line. However, she was the lone starter to score in double figures, but the Troy bench picked up the slack.
"This is a good team that was coming off of five wins in a row," Troy head coach Chanda Rigby said. "To break that streak, you have to do something special, and I think for the whole game the MVP award goes to our bench. For them to have over half of our points, that's a nightmare for other coaches to scout."
The Troy bench outscored UTA's bench, 38-14, led by Rachel Reid's 15 points. Also off the bench, Caitlyn Ramirez posted her first career double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Perhaps the biggest performance off the bench came from Kristen Emerson who posted 10 rebounds and six blocks. Emerson's six blocks were the most by any Trojan in the team's Sun Belt era (2005-present).
Emerson and Ramirez helped bottle up Rebekah Van Dijk, one of the conference's top post players. The Trojans' pair of sophomores held the Mavericks' 6-foot-5 freshman to seven points on 2-of-6 shooting.
Van Dijk entered tied for first in the Sun Belt with Troy's Ronita Garrett with seven double-doubles on the season. Garrett was one of the Troy starters that dealt with foul trouble as she posted four points and three rebounds in just nine minutes of action.
After trailing 9-2 to start, Troy went on a 16-0 run to take an 18-9 lead that it would never give up. That nine-point lead was the biggest of the first half for the Trojans, who built the lead to as many as 14 in the second half.
Troy held a 13-point lead with 1:03 to go, but the Mavericks scored six straight to end game, making the final margin much closer.
LaShanda Green's 19 points led the Mavericks, followed by 10 from Tahlia Pope. Green hit five of the Mavericks eight 3-pointers, but the two sides shot the same exact percentage from deep as UTA hit 8-of-30 and Troy made 4-of-15.
The Trojans have now defeated UT Arlington and UL Lafayette in a three-day span. The pair had a combined 16-5 record entering their games against Troy.
The Trojans return to the court on Saturday when they travel to Atlanta to take on Georgia State. Tipoff at the GSU Sports Arena is set for 11:00 a.m. CST.
UALR Uses 23-0 Run to Blow Out Jaguars
LITTLE ROCK – When the run began, UALR was ahead by six. When it was over, the Trojans’ lead was 29.
UALR went on an incredible 23-0 run in the first half of its game against South Alabama on Monday night, eventually cruising to a 71-37 victory at the Jack Stephens Center.
Leading 11-5 just five minutes into the game, the Trojans (10-2, 3-0 Sun Belt Conference) picked up their game on offense and especially on defense, smothering the Jaguars (3-9, 0-3) and not allowing them to score for nearly 10 full minutes. UALR is now one of just two undefeated teams in the Sun Belt.
"I thought we played with a lot of concentration," UALR coach Joe Foley said. "Sometimes you get sloppy [with a big lead], so I was glad our kids kept their focus and finished it out."
Monday marked the third straight game the Trojans have won by 20 or more points. The 34-point victory was UALR’s largest since it defeated Incarnate Word by 48 in December 2013.
Alexius Dawn led the team in points for the second straight game, scoring 16. Taylor Gault wasn’t far behind with 15 points. Shanity James was a rebound shy of a double-double, recording 11 points and nine rebounds. She also had three blocks. Ka'Nesheia Cobbins, meanwhile, tied a career high with nine assists after reaching that mark in UALR’s game on Saturday after Georgia State. Keanna Keys grabbed eight rebounds as well.
UALR has now won six consecutive regular-season conference games stretching back to last season and four consecutive games overall this year. The Trojans have also won 16 straight conference games at the Jack Stephens Center.
UALR’s defense was evident from the first four minutes of the game. James picked up her three blocks on the Jaguars’ first four offensive possessions, and South Alabama didn’t score a point until their seventh field goal attempt when UALR’s lead was only 6-2.
The Trojans scored the next 5 points before South Alabama hit a 3-pointer to cut UALR’s lead to 11-5 with 14:18 left in the first half. That would be the Jaguars’ last points for a long time.
UALR put the game away in impressive fashion, going on a 23-0 run that spanned nearly 10 minutes and saw the Jaguars commit 11 turnovers. Dawn had two 3-pointers in that span as well as a successful and-1 layup. Lexus Williams, who played a season-high 20 minutes in the game, had all four of her points in that span as well.
"I thought we were pretty patient on offense and most of the time got good looks," Foley said. "I thought we did what we needed to do."
South Alabama finally ended the run with a Breanna Hall layup with 4:16 remaining in the period. The Trojans held Hall – who entered the game as the Sun Belt’s third-leading scorer with 17.3 points per game – to just 2 points on 1-of-9 shooting.
The Trojans’ stifling defense allowed the Jaguars to shoot just 23.5 percent (4 of 17) in the first half, and when the buzzer sounded at the end of the period, UALR led 43-11.
The 11 points South Alabama scored was the fewest for a Trojan opponent in a half all season, and those 11 points were the fewest allowed by UALR in a half since Jan. 29, 2011 against Arkansas State. The Jaguars’ 11 points were the third-fewest allowed in a half by UALR since the team began its Division I iteration in 1999.
Dawn led the team with 14 points at the break while Gault had 10 of her own to reach 1,600 points in her career. Cobbins also picked up seven assists in the first half while James led all players with four rebounders.
The second half saw a decrease in the Trojans’ domination as South Alabama scored 26 points, but UALR still maintained a lead of at least 29 points throughout the entirety of the half.
The game also saw the first action of the season for sophomore guard Di'Mond Jackson. She had 2 points on free throws in nine minutes of action.
The Trojans are back in action very soon, traveling to Texas State for a Thursday-evening date with the Bobcats. UALR and Texas State are scheduled to tip off at 5:30 p.m.
UALR went on an incredible 23-0 run in the first half of its game against South Alabama on Monday night, eventually cruising to a 71-37 victory at the Jack Stephens Center.
A-State Wins Third Consecutive to Open SBC Play
MONROE, La. (1/5/15) – Powered by a big second half offensive surge the Arkansas State women’s basketball team won its third straight game with a 77-57 victory at Louisiana-Monroe Monday night.
A-State (8-5, 3-0 Sun Belt Conference) trailed 30-31 at halftime, but opened the second half on a 6-0 run to regain the lead at 36-31 with 18:06 to go in the game. From that point the Red Wolves outscored the Warhawks (4-7, 0-2) 41-26 to start league play 3-0 for the second straight season.
The Red Wolves’ run was fueled by a swing in momentum when head coach Brian Boyer was charged with a second technical foul with 16:16 remaining in the game. That spurned a 9-2 run for A-State to go up 51-38 with 13:54 left in the game.
“Coach Boyer has the team so we prepared that when they face a little bit of adversity that they don’t miss a beat,” A-State assistant coach Aaron Kallhoff said. “The girls did a great job of picking up their effort and attention and played for him and his attention to detail and his ability to prepare the girls really showed in the second half.”
Khadija Brown-Haywood tied a career-high with 21 points and pulled down six rebounds, while Aundrea Gamble scored 16 points and dished out four assists. Amanda Lawson chipped in with nine points while Jasmine Hunt and Jamie Ruffins pulled down five rebounds each.
The Red Wolves did the bulk of their damage in the second half. The team shot a blistering 51.7 percent (15-of-29) from the field and knocked down 15-of-16 (93.8 percent) from the free throw line. Gamble scored 13 points in the second half, including a perfect 5-of-5 from the foul line. Brown-Haywood added 11 points on 4-of-9 shooting in the half and turned up the defensive pressure and forced the Warhawks into 12 turnovers, which turned into 17 points on the offensive end.
A-State struggled to knock down shots in the first half and fell behind 14-10 after a 7-0 run by the Warhawks to go up 14-10 with 9:29 to go in the half. ULM maintained the five-point advantage throughout much of the half as the Red Wolves hurt themselves on the offensive end with eight turnovers after committing just five in their previous outing.
Gamble scored her first points of the half with 18 seconds to go with a pair of free throws to cut the gap to 31-29 and then hit another one with six left in the half to make it a one point game at the break.
For the game the Red Wolves shot 42.6 percent (23-of-54) from the floor and hit 77.8 percent (28-of-36) of shots from the free throw line. The team finished with 13 turnovers, but had just five in the second half and held the Warhawks to just 33.3 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes.
The squad will return to action Thursday, Jan. 8 at home against Lousiana-Monroe.