Feb. 13, 2009

Box Score

RUSTON -- Louisiana Tech overcame an emotional week that saw the dismissal of their head coach and responded with a 68-56 win over Hawaii Friday night at the Thomas Assembly Center.

Under the direction of interim head coach Teresa Weatherspoon, the Lady Techsters came out and played well before an enthusiastic TAC crowd.

The win wasn't a thing of beauty from start to finish but it was exactly what the proverbial basketball doctor had ordered for a team that had been riding an emotional roller coaster all week.

"I just trusted our ladies to get the job done," Weatherspoon said. "I'm so excited for the game. The crowd tonight really helped us get up. It's good to see the support for our team. The girls handled themselves very well tonight, and I told them how proud I am for the way they conducted themselves."

With the two teams tied at 8-8 at the 14:43 mark of the opening half, Tech (13-11, 6-4 WAC) used back-to-back three-pointers by Tiawana Pringle and Brietta Thomas to trigger a 15-2 run over the next seven minutes and build a 23-10 advantage.

The Lady Techsters used their man-to-man defense, speed and athleticism to force Hawaii into 17 first-half turnovers in building a 31-21 halftime advantage. Johnson scored 10 of her 18 points in the opening half to lead Tech.

"I stressed to our girls to just relax," Weatherspoon said. "We wanted to just worry about us and not so much about the other team tonight. We did a great job tonight of valuing the basketball and created a lot of turnovers. You get excited when the game is played the way it needs to be played when you give all the effort you can."

Tech opened the second half by pushing the advantage out to 15 at 37-22. Hawaii (5-18, 2-8) pulled it under double digits just once in the second half at 37-28 before the Lady Techsters eventually built as much as a 20-point lead before coasting to the win.

Tech overcame an average shooting night and a sizeable disadvantage on the boards in winning the game thanks to recording 15 steals and forcing 30 Rainbow Wahine turnovers.

The Lady Techsters hit 37 percent (27-73) of its field goals and only 20 percent (3-15) of its three-pointers in the game while being outrebounded 50-35.

"When you get 23 more shots than your opponent, you have to take advantage of that by making more than we did," Weatherspoon said. "We also have to do a much better job of boxing out."

Following the game, the players spoke of their observations of their new boss on the bench.

"Coach Spoon is pretty intense," Dowdell said. "She gets as excited as us. I'm surprised she hasn't chest bumped us yet. That's probably coming."

With the win and losses by Nevada and Fresno State Friday night, Tech is now only one game out of first place in the Western Athletic Conference race heading into Sunday's 2 p.m. match-up with the Wolf Pack at the Assembly Center.

"Our kids are focused," Weatherspoon said. "Right now, we must focus on Nevada. We're going to get in here tomorrow and get ourselves prepared for what we need to do. Nevada is a very good team, and we're going to have to play hard and almost flawless to beat them."