Thursday, December 1
Tulsa 65, Duquesne 59 - Box Score
Cincinnati 78, North Carolina A&T 73 - Box Score
UCF 67, Sam Houston 55 - Box Score
George Mason 54, East Carolina 41 - Box Score
UT Arlington 67, Houston 64 - Box Score
Recaps
Tulsa 65, Duquesne 59 - Box Score
PITTSBURGH - Delanie Crawford and Jessika Evans both had a double-double to lead Tulsa to a 65-59 win over Duquesne on Thursday evening at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse in Pittsburgh, Pa. The Golden Hurricane moved to 5-2 on the season, while the Dukes fell to 5-2 overall.
Crawford finished with a team-high 18 points and added 12 rebounds, while Evans posted 16 points and a team-best 15 rebounds, and Temira Poindexter and Ahrray Young both tallied 10 points.
Tulsa trailed by seven (13-6) at the 5:38 mark but scored eight straight points to take a 14-13 edge with 3:42 on the clock and owned an 18-13 advantage at the end of the frame.
The Golden Hurricane held DU scoreless for the final 4:26 off the clock in the first quarter and until 8:18 of the second frame when Ayanna Townsend hit a jumper in the paint. TU continued to inch ahead and owned a 13-point advantage, 38-25, at halftime.Tulsa climbed to a 20-point lead, 55-35, with just 51 seconds remaining in the third quarter and had a 55-38 advantage with one quarter to play.
Duquesne went on a 12-0 run to start the final quarter to pull within five, 55-50, with 7:13 on the clock. A layup by Jessika Evans ended TU's scoring drought with 6:42 to play, but the Dukes didn't stop, pulling to within one, 60-59, with just 1:15 to play. Crawford and Young both scored two free throws and Evans hit the final one for the 65-59 win.
Cincinnati 78, North Carolina A&T 73 - Box Score
GREENSBORO – Junior guard Jillian Hayes and senior guard Mya Jackson each turned in 16 points to lead the University of Cincinnati women's basketball team to a 78-73 road win over North Carolina A&T inside Corbett Sports Center on Thursday night.
With the win, Cincinnati improves to 5-3 on the season.
Hayes and Jackson were two of four Bearcats to finish in double figures. Braylyn Milton turned in 11 points on 4-7 from the field, while Malea Williams posted her first double digit scoring affair of the season with 11 points of her own.
The Bearcats raced out to an early 8-0 lead behind four points from Taziah Jenks, but the Aggies responded by outscoring the Bearcats 23-13 the remainder of the first period. Cincinnati settled in over the next 10 minutes, outscoring their opponent 19-12 in the second quarter to command the 40-35 lead at the half.
Cincinnati continued to attack out of the break, taking their largest lead of the game at 56-46 midway through the third period. The two teams would continue to trade runs in the second half as the Bearcats entered the fourth quarter with the one-point advantage.
After North Carolina A&T took a 66-65 lead at the 4:58 mark in the fourth, Cincinnati went on an 8-0 run highlighted by five straight points from Hayes, while holding their opponents scoreless for almost three minutes of action, to extend their lead and keep their opponent at arms length for the eventual final.
Cincinnati finished a season-high 51.9 percent from the field. The Bearcats are now 19-0 under head coach Michelle Clark-Heard when shooting at least 50.0 percent from the field. The Bearcats converted eight of their last nine attempts from the line.
The Bearcats received a season-high 29 points from its bench, while the Bearcats earned 26 points off 21 Aggie turnovers.
UCF 67, Sam Houston 55 - Box Score
ORLANDO – A gritty double-overtime victory over Samford that saw both teams climb into the 70s during last weekend's Thanksgiving Classic notwithstanding, a rock-solid defensive scheme has served as the crucial foundation for the UCF Knights women's basketball team's undefeated start to the new season.
The group etched another chapter in its storybook start to the young 2022-23 campaign Thursday evening, led by a career night by senior forward Destiny Thomas and another strong team defensive showing as the Knights surged past the visiting Sam Houston Bearkats by a 67-55 final score at Addition Financial Arena.
The winning effort extended UCF's (6-0, 0-0 American) season-opening win streak to six consecutive games, one shy of tying the program's all-time record of consecutive wins to start a season of seven straight, a mark set during the 1984-85 campaign under then-head coach Joe Sanchez.
Thomas led the offensive charge in the final 20 minutes of play, scoring 14 of her 22 points in the second half and grabbing 18 rebounds throughout the night. Both her 22 points and 18 rebounds marked career-highs as the senior recorded her third straight game with a double-double, her fourth of the season and seventh of her career.
UCF entered the contest ranking among NCAA Division I leaders on the defensive end, boasting the fourth-lowest opponent field goal rate, at 30.7 percent, and ranking 21st in the nation in overall scoring defense, allowing 52.2 points per game.
At the final buzzer, the Knights had limited Sam Houston (2-4, 0-0 WAC) to 31 percent shooting (19-of-62) from the field and just over their season average with 55 points. UCF also out-rebounded the Bearkats by a 48-33 margin.
On Thursday, the Knights once again demonstrated their resolve, weathering a 15-2 run in the final minutes of the first half to help clinch their sixth win of the year. UCF began its evening on a strong 11-4 run spearheaded by Thomas.
The Knights senior made three of four early tries from the free throw line to aid in igniting the stretch that would see five different Knights find the scoresheet. By the time the arena buzzer sounded to conclude the first 10 minutes of play, Thomas had scored six of the Knights first 16 points.
Senior Mya Burns ballooned UCF's lead to 19-9 with the Knights' first 3-point shot of the game 33 seconds into the period, the first of three UCF triples before halftime. Thomas later added two more points before the Bearkats rattled off its dominant stretch to flip the Knights' 23-11 advantage into a 26-25 deficit.
Rachel Ranke came through in the final two minutes of the half with the final two 3-pointers for the Knights, though, to restore UCF's lead to 31-28 entering the locker room.
Thomas took center stage for the Knights throughout a tightly-contested second half, a 20-minute period that saw neither team score more than five unanswered points. She potted eight of UCF's 13 points in the third quarter and six more in the final frame, and a pair of 3-point shots courtesy of Ranke and Burns helped put the game on ice in the final two minutes.
Behind Thomas, Burns and Ranke also reached double-digit points with 17 and 11, respectively, with Ranke drilling three of her seven tries from beyond the arc.
George Mason 54, East Carolina 41 - Box Score
FAIRFAX – The East Carolina women's basketball team fell to the George Mason Patriots 54-41 Thursday at EagleBank Arena. The loss ends a two-week road swing for the Pirates as they return to Minges Coliseum Sunday.
George Mason (4-5) threw the first punch in the game, holding the Pirates to seven points in the first quarter while scoring 17 of their own. The Patriots opened the scoring with a pair of three-point shots and went from there. In a quarter with few bright spots for ECU, Tiara Chambers registered her 88th career block, moving her into a tie for sixth all-time in the category in program history.
The Pirates (5-2) battled in the second quarter, keeping the margin where it was. Both teams scored a dozen points in the period, but ECU was unable to pull back into the game any. The team spread out the scoring in the second with five players finding the basket. A Patriots shot at the horn pushed the margin back to 10 at the break.
George Mason was able to extend the lead once again in the second quarter by pounding the ball inside, racking up 12 points in the paint. Danae McNeal did her best to counteract the Mason offense, scoring six points of her own in the quarter but it simply was not enough as the Pirates went into the final period down by 17.
The Pirates made a valiant effort to come back in the fourth quarter, recording a 9-0 run over nearly seven minutes of game time to cut the margin into single digits, but that was as far as the comeback effort went. A Mason free throw did eventually break up the run after several empty possessions saw chances to further chip into the deficit go by the wayside and the Patriots played stout defense and made their free throws to hold on for victory.
Ultimately, holding George Mason to only seven points in the final quarter was not much consolation as ECU was only able to put in 11 points of their own in the period on a mere 4-18 from the field. Synia Johnson's 13 points led the Pirates on the day but a poor shooting performance doomed any chance of victory.
UT Arlington 67, Houston 64 - Box Score
HOUSTON - Despite a late rally, the Houston Cougars women's basketball team couldn't not overcome a fourth quarter deficit, falling to UT Arlingotn 67-65 on Thursday night.
Tiara Young scored 21 points - her third straight game with 20 points, becoming the first Cougar to reach that mark since 2018.
Laila Blair (14 pts), De'Myla Brown (12 pts) and Tatyana Hill (11 pts) each reached double-figures in the loss. Hill grabbed 13 rebounds for a double-double.
The Cougars shot 40.7 percent from the field on 24-for-59 from the field and 26.7 percent from behind the arc on 4-for-15 shooting. Houston was only able to hit 48 percent from the charity strip on 12-of-25 shooting.
Houston forced UTA into 17 turnovers, but were only able to score 15 points off the Mavericks mistakes.