Lady Raiders play the ACU Wildcats

Go Lady Raiders!!!

RAIDER !!!!  POWER !!!!

Game: Lady Raiders vs. Abilene Christian Wildcats

Date: Sunday, December 22, 2013

Time: 2:00pm CST

Location: "The USA" Lubbock, TX

Radio: Texas Tech Sports Network (97.3 FM Lubbock)

Gametracker: www.texastech.com/gametracker

Streaming video: www.texastech.com/allaccess

Listen: www.texastech.com/allaccess

The Lady Raiders (6-4, 0-0) play the Abilene Christian Wildcats (8-5, 0-0) Sunday, December 22, 2013 at the USA in Lubbock. The game will be played at 2pm CT.  These two teams have not met since 1983.

The Lady Wildcats are coming off a close win over Jacksonville yesterday (76-72) in the World Vision Challenge Women's Basketball Tournament. The ACU team pulled out the win after the game was tied at 70 with 54 seconds left on the game clock. The game came down to Abilene Christian making their shots and the free-throw attempts count.  The Wildcats are led by Senior Forward Renata Marquez who averages 12.8 ppg and 7.3 rpg and is 75% accurate at the free-throw line. She is an all-around player that has 47 takeaways so far this season but she is also a team player and has 48 Assists. Sophomore Guard Whitney West 12.3 pppg and is a strong defensive player with 19 Steals and 32 Assists. Freshman Guard Alexis Mason averages 12.5 ppg and is over 78% accurate from the free-throw line and is a strong 3-point shooter. Freshman forward Suzzy Dimba is a strong defensive player. Dimba averages over 8 rpg and she has 18 blocks this season and she can shoot too with an average of  11.7 ppg with almost half of those coming from the 3-point arc. The Wildcats are currently in 2^nd place in the Southland conference.

The Lady Raiders played a very athletic game yesterday and beat Florida Atlantic 76-63. Tech came out slow again and allowed the Owls to go on a 9-2 run to start the game.  But then the Lady Raiders started hitting their shots and working well together. Tech tied the game up at the 9:37 minute mark and went into half-time ahead 40-28.  This game was a team effort.  Amber Battle had an excellent day with 28 points and 6 rebounds. But a very good sign emerged when Shauntal Nobles and Audrisa Harrison both had double-doubles. Nobles scored 10 points and had 12 rebounds. Harrison made 11 points and 18 rebounds.  The Lady Raiders did what I said they needed to do ... improve on the boards and get aggressive in the paint.  Tech outscored FAU 40-24 in the paint and out-rebounded the Owls 49-38.  Battles was the star player again.  It was her aggressive and unrelenting play that put a fire in this team and allowed them to tie the game up and pull away from the Owls.  Battles has become the true leader of this team but it was also a great sign that others are stepping up their play to take some of the load off her shoulders.

Tech cannot look past the Abilene Christian team.  The have shown heart and are a cohesive team that can make their shots and can get the turnovers. The Lady Raiders need to continue improving on their 3-point shots and working the transitions. They need to learn to come out and start making their shots count.  They will get killed in Big12 play if their slow starts continue.

So far this season the Lady Raiders have done very well at the free-throw line. They rank 13^th in the country with a 77.2 FT%. Tech is playing a clean game and have minimized their fouls (53^rd nationally). Also this team has done well in Blocked shots averaging 4 per game.  They have shown improvement in their 3-point shots and have been more aggressive in the paint and on the boards in the last few games.

The Abilene Christian Wildcats' Head Coach, Julie Goodenough, begins her 2nd season.  She turned the Wildcats team around in just one season.  ACU finished as the Lone Star Conference regular-season champs at 16-4 and finished at 21-7 after post-season play ended in the NCAA D-II Regional Quarters.  She has coached at Hardin-Simons (1993-2002), Oklahoma State (2002-2005) and  Charleton Southern (2006-2012).  Goodenough's record at ACU is 29-7 and a total career record of 310-227.

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The Starting Lineups:

Texas Tech

- G   Diamond Lockhart  Averages 6.9 PPG and 93.3% FT%

- G   Minta Spears         Averages 12.3 PPG and 3.2 RPG and 82.1 FT%

- G   Audrisa Harrison     Averages 5.3 PPG and 6.1 RPG and 78.5 FT%

- G   Amber Battle          Averages 16.4 PPG and 9.4 RPG

- C   Shauntal Nobles     Averages 6.4 PPG and 5.9 RPG and 80 FT%

Abilene Christian

- G   Whitney West        Averages 12.3 PPG and 2.1 RPG and is 65.2% FT%

- G   Alexis Mason         Averages 12.3 PPG and 3.7 RPG and is 78.3% FT%

- F   Renata Marquez     Averages 12.3 PPG and 7.3 RPG and is 75% FT%

- F   Sydney Shelstead   Averages 8.9 PPG and 6.3 RPG and is 64.3 FT%

- F   Suzzy Dimba          Averages 11.7 PPG and 8.0 RPG and has 19 Blocks

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Notes:

The Big 12 is one of two conferences (Big Ten) in which every team is .500 or better.

Seventy percent of Big 12 teams are in the top 56 of the Jeff Sagarin RPI ratings and the Big 12 is rated No. 1 among conferences.

The Big 12 has faced 11 ranked non-conference foes with six of those in the top 10.

The Big 12 leads all Division I leagues in scoring with 77.69 points and in rebounding with 44.22 an outing.

The Conference is second with a .439 field goal percentage (2,440-of-5,556) and .715 free-throw percentage (1,556-of-2,176).

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To view or listen to the game go to TexasTech.TV

The game can be heard on the radio 93.7 FM (Lubbock and on the Texas Tech Sports Network (www.TexasTech.com)

Live stats will be available on Gametracker at TexasTech.com.