Tulsa Corrals Mustangs 66-59

Saturday, January 28

Reynolds Center

7:00 pm

Tulsa

7-14 (3-5AAC)

SMU

11-10 (2-6AAC)

SMU

Tulsa

Tulsa Corrals Mustangs 66-59

1/28/2017 9:34:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: Stephanie Hall

Final Stats in PDF l Final Stats in HTML l Season Stats in PDF

Shug Dickson had her fourth 20+ scoring game in the last five contests as the freshman led Tulsa to a 66-59 win over SMU Saturday night in front of 864 fans at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

Tatyana Perez added 12 points on four three-pointers, while Kendrian Elliott added eight points and 12 rebounds for the Hurricane. SMU's McKenzie Adams paced the Mustangs with 14 points.

"Shug Dickson was solid today," Head Coach Matilda Mossman said. "But I thought we had a lot of kids that were really solid today –Kendrian Elliott, Liesl Spoerl, Crystal Polk and Jessica Pongonis really did a great job on their bigs inside. Our kids played solid, and the big thing was that we had a lead at halftime and we didn't give up that lead."

The Hurricane was sluggish in the third quarter after leading 35-23 at halftime, scoring only nine points for the 10-minute span. Tulsa scored just four points in the first 5:48 minutes of the third period, while the Mustangs put up 11 points and cut the Hurricane lead to 39-33 with 4:32 left in the quarter.

Although the Mustangs trimmed the Tulsa lead to four points at the start of the fourth period at 44-40, Tulsa rebounded in the final stanza with 22 points to close out the game. With Tulsa only up by four, two Perez three-pointers sandwiched two Dickson free throws to put the Hurricane ahead by 12 points at 52-40 with 6:09 left in the contest. Tulsa increased its lead to 13 on another Perez trey at the 4:34 mark.

Tulsa converted 6-of-8 free throws in the final 0:43 to hold off the Mustangs for the seen-point victory.

The Hurricane grabbed a season-high 50 boards, out-rebounding a much taller SMU team by one rebound. The difference in the game was Tulsa's nine three-pointers to SMU's three treys. SMU had a 34-to-16 point advantage in the paint and 22 second-chance points to Tulsa's nine, as well as a 10-to-2 edge on points off turnovers.

"We only outrebounded them by one, but I'm just pleased with the 16 offensive rebounds. I'm also pleased that we rebounded with them," added Mossman.

SMU took a 2-0 lead to start the game, but Tulsa's Wakefield tied the score and from that point on in the first half the Hurricane held on to the lead. Tulsa out-scored SMU 11-1 to take an eight-point lead, 11-3, at the 6:35 mark of the first quarter. The Hurricane increased that lead to 11 points by the end of the quarter at 20-9.

In the second period, SMU went on a 12-2 run to close their deficit to one point at 22-21 with 5:40 remaining in the quarter. With Tulsa leading 24-23 at the 4:24 mark, the Hurricane closed out the half on an 11-0 run to take a 35-23 halftime lead. During Tulsa's 11-0 stretch, Parker hit two three-pointers, Perez one and Elliott scored on a layup.

"Initially we got behind in scoring in the second quarter, but our kids were very composed. They started attacking us and we couldn't match up height-wise, but we forced them to take bad shots," said Mossman.

In the first 20 minutes, Tulsa shot 45-percent from the field, while holding the Mustangs to 26 percent. Elliott led the Hurricane with eight points and five rebounds as she played all 20 minutes in the first half.

Tulsa is back at the Reynolds Center on Tuesday to host the East Carolina Pirates in a 7:00 p.m. game.