University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Southern Miss Loses To Houston, 70-56
2/6/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Southern Miss Loses To Houston, 70-56
Deondra Carter connected on 8-of-15 from the field, including 5-of-8 from behind the arc |
HOUSTON, Texas ? The Houston Cougars used an 11-3 run over 3:15 to break open a close game, defeating Southern Miss 70-56 in Conference USA women?s basketball action Friday night in Hofheinz Pavilion.
Southern Miss dropped to 14-7 overall and 2-6 in the league, while Houston improved to 18-3 overall and 7-1 in the league.
Deondra Carter scored a season-high 23 points and Lotte Hulshof added 12 points for Southern Miss. Houston?s Chandi Jones led the Cougars with 23 points and Sancho Lyttle recorded a double-double with 17 points and 14 rebounds.
"We have to give Houston a lot of credit the way they came out and played in the second half," Head Coach Rick Reeves said. "I thought our kids played hard, but we made some mistakes on the offensive end. Seems like when ever we made a little run, they had an answer. They really didn?t hurt us with their press; we just didn?t take care of the basketball on the offensive end."
Southern Miss jumped out to an early lead and led by as many as seven points, 25-18, in the first half. Houston then outscored the Lady Eagles 8-3, cutting the lead to 2, 28-26, just before the half.
Houston used a 6-2 run to start the second half to tie the game at 30. Southern Miss took the lead again, 33-32, off a Lana Lewis three-point play the old-fashioned way at the 17:05 mark. From there, Houston outscored Southern Miss, 11-3, for a seven-point lead, 43-36.
The Lady Eagles kept the game close for the next five minutes and cut the Houston lead to five, 53-48, when Carter hit her fourth three-pointer of the night. Houston then reeled off five answered points to push its lead to 10, 59-49. Carter nailed her last three-pointer to cut the lead to seven, again, 59-52, and that was as close as the Lady Eagles would get. Houston closed out the game with an 11-4 run.
Houston shot 44.4 percent from the field while limiting Southern Miss to 36.5 percent shooting. The Lady Eagles hit nine of their 11 attempts from the line. Houston out rebounded Southern Miss, 40-32, including 18 offensive rebounds. The Cougars scored 26 points off 21 USM turnovers and added 36 points in the paint.
Southern Miss continues its road swing with a game at nationally-ranked TCU on Sunday at 2 p.m.
