The women’s basketball team faced off against the top team in the country, the UConn Huskies, who were fresh from breaking their early 2000s record of most consecutive wins in NCAA basketball. The Huskies took an early lead, and outscored the Golden Hurricane in all four quarters to take a 98–58 win.
Tulsa found themselves in an early hole, as the Huskies ran to a 14–0 lead. The Golden Hurricane missed their first eight shots and couldn’t get into an offensive rhythm, the same problem they’ve had for the last couple of games.
Freshman Shug Dickson hit a 3-pointer at 5:03 to break Tulsa’s scoring drought, and the final five minutes saw the teams put up 32 total points. UConn shot 10–16, while the Golden Hurricane only managed 6–17 from the field.
Dickson hit another three to start the second-quarter, bringing the score to 30–19. The Huskies would only go on to outscore the Golden Hurricane by eight points in the second quarter, as junior Liesl Spoerl and sophomore Tatyana Perez hit threes to bring the score to 55–33 at the end of the first half. The 33 points were the second most points that UConn has allowed in the first half in the entire season — behind the 34 that Ohio State, Notre Dame and Florida State put up.
The third quarter saw the Huskies outscore the Golden Hurricane 29–13. Tulsa went through another scoreless run that started in the middle of the third quarter, which ended midway through the final quarter.
The Golden Hurricane held UConn to only 14 points in the last quarter, but the Huskies had taken most of their starters out of the game at that point, and put in their second stringers.
While a forty-point loss is a tough pill to swallow there are two things to take from the loss. This was the most points that UConn had given up in its five conference games that it has played so far, and Tulsa is a very young team — eight of thirteen players are freshmen or sophomores — meaning they have a promising future to look forward to.
After the loss the Golden Hurricane traveled to Orlando to take on UCF. This time Tulsa was the one to jump out to an early lead, starting the game off with a 10–0 run. The Knights battled back and throughout the first three quarters of play, the two teams traded the lead.
Tulsa put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring the Knights 27–20 to win 73–62. Dickson (20), junior Erika Wakefield (17) and junior Ebony Park (15) led the way for the Golden Hurricane.
Head coach Matilda Mossman talked about Dickson — who has led the Golden Hurricane in points for the last three games, putting up over 20 in each of them — after the game.
“I think Shug’s development over the course of the season has been huge and that has been evident in the last three games. She was tremendous today handling pressure and getting off great shots. I think Tyjae’ [Scales] is the unsung hero because she played 22 minutes and although her stat line doesn’t show it she was a big presence. She defended well and kept her player from getting rebounds.”
The win puts their overall record at 6–13 and their American Athletic Conference Record at 2–4. The Golden Hurricane will travel to New Orleans (12–6) this week to take on Tulane, before returning to host Southern Methodist University (11–8) on Sunday.
