Thursday, Dec. 3
Highlights
Georgia Tech 55, Tulane 51
The Tulane women's basketball team fell at Georgia Tech, 55-51, on Thursday night.
"It was a tough game," head coach Lisa Stockton said. "We just couldn't shoot the ball very well. I thought our defense was great. They are so much bigger than we are, and we only lost the rebounding battle by five. We actually had more offensive rebounds than they did. We fought hard. We had a shot to tie it at the end. I'm proud of them. I think that they came in here to battle. They showed what kind of defense we can play, and I think we've got some really good things to look forward to."
The Green Wave (2-1) posted 37 rebounds and seven steals, while the Georgia Tech (2-1) had 42 rebounds and eight steals. Tulane's defense stepped up and forced the Yellow Jackets into 16 turnovers. The Green Wave also held Georgia Tech to 35.5 (22-62) percent from the field. Freshman Jerkaila Jordan led the Green Wave with 18 points, six rebounds and three assists. while senior Krystal Freeman logged seven points and a team-high 10 rebounds. Senior Arsula Clark added 15 points.
After trading baskets to start the third, Georgia Tech closed the period on a 10-2 run to take a 38-30 lead into the fourth. Clark opened the fourth with a jumper in the paint to cut the score to 38-32. After four points from Georgia Tech, the Olive and Blue went on an 8-2 run to cut the Georgia Tech lead to 44-40.
The Yellow Jackets extended their lead to 49-42 then the Green Wave used five straight points from Clark and two free throws from Freeman to cut the score to 49-47 with 2:20 remaining. The two teams traded baskets until the score was 53-51 with 33 seconds remaining. Georgia Tech had possession after junior Dynah Jones hit a layup. Jones then forced a Yellow Jackets turnover to give the ball back to Tulane. The Green had three chances to tie or take the lead in the next possession but were unable to convert.
Both teams started the game slow, but the Wave took an early lead. The Green Wave and the Yellow Jackets traded buckets throughout the first and closed the quarter tied at 12. Georgia Tech opened the second quarter with an 8-2 run, but the Green Wave fought back to cut the Yellow Jackets' lead to 23-21 at the break.
Jordan led the way for the Green Wave in the first half with 10 points and four rebounds.
Texas State 74, SMU 70 (OT)
In the first overtime game since March 17, 2017, and only the second during the Travis Mays tenure as head coach, SMU lost 74-70 at home to Texas State.
Kayla White led the team with 18 points. Freshman Rhyle McKinney finished with 10 points, and Paige Bayliss scored nine points with nine rebounds. Transfer Jahnaria Brown scored seven with seven rebounds, and Reagan Bradley tallied nine points with four assists.
Prior to the game, the team knelt in unison against racism and social injustice. The team issued a statement that was read over the public address system, stating:
"We matter because our lives are valuable and we have a right to live free of discrimination. We are student-athletes with unique identities that should be respected and valued on and off the court. Our voices matter, and we have the right to speak up about injustices we face in this country. We have the power to point out the inequities that harm us. I Matter. You Matter. We Matter. Black Lives Matter."
SMU (0-2) led for 37:37 to just 3:41 for Texas State (1-1), and the Mustangs did not trail in regulation. The Bobcats erased an eight-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter, with SMU leading 56-48 to start the period. Texas State tied the game, 66-66, with just 11 seconds left. Bradley had a chance at the horn, but the shot did not fall.
Bradley started the scoring in the overtime period, giving SMU a 68-66 lead just 15 seconds into the extra time. However, by the time McKinney hit the second SMU basket in overtime with just two seconds left, the game had been decided. Texas State outscored the Mustangs 8-4 for the win.
Georgia 66, East Carolina 45
Georgia out-scored East Carolina 41-27 in the second half on the way to a 66-45 non-conference victory Thursday evening inside Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum in the Pirates' home opener.
The Bulldogs (3-0) remained undefeated while ECU (1-2) fell in its second of three-straight games against "Power Five" opponents.
"First and foremost, hats off to Georgia," head coach Kim McNeill said. "They're a good team and I wish them luck in the SEC this year. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I'm extremely disappointed in the way we finished that game in the fourth quarter. That's not who we are and that's not who we're going to be. We've made strides and we fight hard to compete. It's not that we lost the game, but how we lost the game."
After missing the first two games of the campaign with an injury, senior guard, defending 2019-20 American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year and preseason All-AAC selection Lashonda Monk made her season debut, doing so in style. She netted a game-high 17 points to go along with four rebounds and three steals. Sophomore guard Taniyah Thompson added seven points and two steals while freshman guard Synia Johnson chipped in with five points, three rebounds and a trio of steals. Que Morrison paced UGA with 13 points and four steals to complement a seven-assist effort out of Gabby Connally.
ECU hit just 17 of 60 attempts (28.3 percent) from the field while Georgia ended up at 46.4 percent by knocking down 26 of 56. The Bulldogs also enjoyed a healthy advantage on the glass, out-rebounding the Pirates 44-31. Positively, the Pirates forced 22 Georgia turnovers and collected 12 steals, turning those into 19 points.
"Coach Cory (McNeill) did an amazing job with the scout and I feel like the young ladies were extremely prepared," McNeill added. "Georgia did not do anything different than what we talked about. It comes down to executing the game plan and I thought we did that for 20-25 minutes. We looked like we quit in the fourth quarter and that's not acceptable. It won't be acceptable in this program."
A trio of Georgia players knocked down three of the squad's first six attempts from the field to help the Bulldogs build a 6-0 advantage just over three minutes into the game. East Carolina notched its first bucket of the day thanks to a Monk steal and Siera DaCosta fastbreak layup to slice the UGA lead to four, but Georgia would stretch its cushion to 11 following a pair of Javyn Nicholson free throws with under two minutes on the clock. ECU had the final say in the quarter as Thompson hit a pair of free throws to leave the Bulldogs ahead by nine.
Nicholson extended the visitors' lead to 13 at 21-8 early in the second quarter on a driving layup, but East Carolina made a push from there, out-scoring Georgia 8-2 over the next two and a half minutes to reduce its deficit to seven. That would be the margin at halftime as Monk put in a layup off a Bulldog turnover to make it 25-18.
Monk and UGA's Jenna Staiti matched each other with eight points in the opening half. The Pirates converted just eight of 33 attempts (24.2 percent) from the field while Georgia was good on 10 of its 27 shots to end up at 37 percent. The Bulldogs had the edge on the glass by a 24-17 count, but ECU forced 14 UGA turnovers that led to 10 Pirate points.
East Carolina continued to chip away at the Bulldog lead in the third quarter, whittling the deficit down to six following an old-fashioned three-point play by Thompson. After the media timeout, Georgia extended its upper hand back to 11, but Monk scored five straight – including a three-pointer – to make it 40-34 with 1:37 on the clock. The Bulldogs seized control from there, snagging the final six points of the period to head into the fourth quarter with a 12-point lead.
A driving layup by sophomore forward Xianna Josephs pulled the Pirates within 10 early in the fourth stanza. However, Georgia began to exert itself and pulled away, building as much as a 23-point advantage before the final buzzer.