Women win eighth straight to tie record

By Kelly Morris
Associate Sports Editor

After Friday night’s game against Tulsa, the TCU women’s basketball team started off February just like they did January — with a win.

With the victory, the Frogs recorded their record-tying eighth-straight win and now are off to a TCU best 15-4 start. In the seven games the Frogs played in January, they were undefeated and are currently at the top of the Western Athletic Conference with a 7-0 record.

After the Frogs missed their first nine shots of Friday’s game and shot just 24.2 percent (8-of-33) in the first half, they were down 30-21 at intermission.

Head coach Jeff Mittie said the team’s nine-day layoff was one of the reasons for the sluggish start.

“As with any team who has had a long layoff, it was hard for us to get back in our offensive rhythm,” Mittie said.

Despite the Frogs’ 25 offensive rebounds in the game, freshman guard Ebony Shaw said they didn’t make the most of their opportunities in the first half.

“We had a lot of offensive rebounds, but we weren’t able to make our put backs,” Shaw said. “Instead of just playing basketball, we were forcing our outside shots and looking for the refs to make the calls.

“As we got stronger in the paint, we got more wide-open shots from the outside.”

The Frogs made just 5 of 18 three-point attempts (27.8 percent) in the game compared to Tulsa’s 54.5 percent from behind the arc.

In the second half, the Frogs took their first lead of the game, 36-35, off two of senior guard Jill Sutton’s 10 points. In the first 10 minutes of the second half, the Frogs went on a 26-10 run to further its lead to 47-40.

Tulsa regained a three-point lead with five minutes remaining in the game. Then the Frogs took the lead for the last time, scoring their final seven points of the game from the free-throw line.

The Frogs made all three of their free throws in the first half and went on to make 10 of 11 shots from the free-throw line in the second half.

Four Frogs scored in double figures. Leading the Frogs in scoring was junior forward Tricia Payne who had 18 points. Sutton along with junior forwards Janice Thomas and Kati Safaritova each scored 10 points. Thomas also grabbed 10 rebounds to claim her fifth double-double of the season.

Friday’s victory snapped a three-game losing streak at Tulsa and a nine-day break since the Frogs’ last game.
Shaw said she was excited about resuming play and ending the Frogs losing streak in Tulsa.

“Practice is good, but it was nice to get back to playing basketball and continuing the roll we’ve been on,” Shaw said. “Because we almost lost, Friday’s game really scared me, but TCU has been known to break a lot of streaks, and we weren’t going to let (Friday’s) game continue the losing streak we had (against) Tulsa.”

The Frogs return to action at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum when they play Texas-El Paso.

Kelly Morris
k.l.morris@student.tcu.edu