Nov. 23, 2008

Box Score

KNOXVILLE -- Amber Gray and Alyssia Brewer each scored 16 points to lead 13th ranked Tennessee to a 94-59 win over Louisiana Tech Sunday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Whitney Jones scored a career-high 23 points for Tech.

Tech trailed by only seven points at the half before the Lady Vols outscored the Lady Techsters 54-26 over the final 20 minutes of play.

"Obviously, it got away from us in the second half when we got into serious foul trouble," said Tech coach Chris Long. "It made the second half very difficult. It changed the complexion of the game. Give Tennessee credit for making plays."

The two teams traded buckets early on as UT led 21-19 with just under eight minutes to play in the opening half before the Lady Vols used a 17-5 run and to push the lead to 38-24 with 2:45 to play.

However, Tech would not go away as the Lady Techsters closed the half on a 9-2 run to enter the halftime locker room trailing only 40-33.

Tennessee scored the first seven points out of the locker room and to grab a double digit lead. Tech still hung tough trailing by only 13 points at 58-45 with just over 12 minutes to play before foul trouble was too much to overcome as Shanavia Dowdell, Adrienne Johnson and Tiawana Pringle all fouled out in a two-minute span.

"Once we had three players foul out, it was hard to keep it close," Long said. "They played hard. We played hard ... maybe too hard since we had three players foul out."

Jones, who scored her previous career-high of 16 points in last year's loss at Knoxville, was a one-man offensive show for Tech, hitting 10-of-19 field goals and 2-of-5 free throws while also pulling down nine rebounds in the loss.

"Whitney had 16 points in the second half (against UT) last year," Long said. "At that point she realized how good she could be, and then she broke her leg two games later.

"The thing about Whitney is that although this is her third year of college, it's only her 18th collegiate game. She's just going to get better and better. I thought she did a great job of keeping us in the game early."

Freshman point guard Jasmine Bendolph recorded career-highs with nine points and four assists while senior Keshia Warren led Tech on the boards with 10 rebounds and added four blocks.

For the game, Tech hit only 31 percent of its field goals (21-67) and only 48 percent (14-29) of its free throws while UT hit 43 percent (33-77) of its field goals and 26-of-37 free throws.

UT outrebounded Tech 55-50 although the Lady Techsters pulled down 26 offensive rebounds in the game.

Tech returns to action Wednesday night when it hosts Nicholls State at 7 p.m. at the Thomas Assembly Center.