Tulane Women's Defense, Boards Lead to Victory over UNO, 95-71
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The Tulane women's team was in need of a win Sunday afternoon. After winning once in their last five games, the Wave came off a 10-day break for exams to challenge cross-town rival UNO. Tulane got off to an early double-digit lead midway through the 1st quarter that it never relinquished as the Green Wave drowned the University of New Orleans, 95-71.
Speaking of double-digits, a quartet of Greenies hit that mark in the scoring category. Leading the way, TU guard Kendall Sneed with 18, followed by forward Amira Mabry's 17, guard Kanija Daniel with 15 and guard CC Mays' dozen. Mays also accounted for the game's only double-double with 10 rebounds.
"We just had the mindset to be the aggressor on the glass," May said. "We had games where we had teams who were shorter than us and lost the rebounding battle. That has been an emphasis for the last ten days."
It worked. The Wave controlled the boards, more than doubling the results of the Privateers, 47-23.
"We just talked about owning the glass," Tulane coach Ashley Langford said after the game. "When you have that many days of practice when you're not playing, you can emphasize different things, and we've just been on them about rebounding."
The Green Wave got on a three-point run in this game, hitting 11-of-their 27 from beyond the arc. That almost 41% rate came about for a good reason.
"It's nice, right? It just opens up the floor," Langford pushed. "When we get wide open, uncontested shots, we're a good offensive team. I think today, we had 20-assists, and (because of those assists) you're seeing now we're getting high percentage and uncontested shots, and uncontested shots are probably going to go in."
Throughout most of the game, the Green Wave was able to control things on the defensive end against the shorter Privateers. UNO shot under 39% from the field in the 1st quarter and right at 40% in the 2nd. The third period was the outlier, as the Privateers hit 56% of their field goals. Tulane went into lockdown mode in the final quarter, holding UNO to just 3-of-13 from the field, a 23% clip. It was a nice bounce back for Langford's team.
"They better," Langford said with a laugh, but more of a serious one. "I mean, they want to win the game, right? We're capable of doing it (holding teams to a low percentage from the field). It's just a matter of consistently doing it, all five people on the court for forty minutes. Once we do that, we're going to be really good."
Most may not notice, but there is a tradition that senior Amira Mabry has at the end of every home game. After the handshakes with the other team, Mabry can be seen waving toward the stands. We asked her afterwards if there was someone in particular she was waving to. Her answer was heart-warming.
"I'm waving to everyone," Mabry said with a smile. "I want everyone to know how much I appreciate them being there and supporting us."
The victory paves the way for three more games before the Christmas holidays. Tulane will be on the road to Tuscaloosa for an afternoon battle against SEC power, Alabama, on Wednesday. Then, it's back home for the annual Tulane Holiday Tournament next weekend.
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.