Tulane Women Lose a Close One to League-Leading Tulsa, 76-73
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Despite outrebounding league-leading Tulsa, getting eight steals and five blocked shots, the Tulane women's basketball team couldn't find the mark from the free throw line or beyond the three-point arc, as the Green Wave fell to the Hurricane 76-73 in Fogelman Arena Tuesday night.
"I told the team we played 25-minutes of good basketball," coach Ashley Langford told us after the game. "We kind of lost a bit of focus in the second half."
After holding Tulsa to less than 35% from the field in the first two periods of play leading to a Tulane 37-26 advantage at half, the Hurricane came out blazing in the third stanza, hitting 50% of their shots to crawl to within three before the final 10-minutes of play. Meanwhile, the Green Wave cooled off considerably from their 67% clip from the field in the 2nd quarter to less than half that in period number three.
Junior guard Kanija Daniel lead a quintet of Tulane players in double-digits with 16-points. Mecailin Marshall and Jayda Brown came off the bench to get a dozen apiece. Senior Amira Mabry added 11 and Dyllan Hanna put up ten.
The Green Wave outrebounded Tulsa, 42-37 with junior guard Jayda Brown grabbing 10-boards. Mabry pulled down 9 and Hanna claimed 8.
Tulane had a hard time finding the basket from the charity stripe and beyond 22-feet, 1-and-three-quarters inches. While Tulsa hit 17 of their 23 free throws, the Green Wave was only 8-of-17 for the night. From three-point land, the Wave shot 15.9% on their 19-shots.
However, Tulane has found a way to get better, especially over the last three games. In this Tulsa game, Green Wave players handed out 20-assists, led by some quick thinking passes down low from guard Kendall Sneed who drove into the lane, then dished it off to Mabry or Hanna for seven of those assists.
"We're getting better," Langford admitted. "Our last three games, we're getting better, making the extra pass,
"The (losses) that are close hurt more," Langford lamented. "Our last three losses have been by a combined six points. We've just got to start locking in at the end of games and making winning plays."
The loss drops Tulane to 6-9 overall, 1-2 in American Conference play. Tulsa improves to 10-4 for the year, 2-0 in the AAC. The Green Wave are back home for a Saturday afternoon game against UAB. Tipoff is set for 2:00 p.m. in Fogelman.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.