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Go Lady Raiders!!!
RAIDER !!!! POWER!!!!
Game: Lady Raiders vs. Nicholls State Colonels
Date: Friday, December 19, 2014
Time: 5:30pm CST
Location: "The USA" Lubbock, TX
Radio: Texas Tech Sports Network (97.3 FM Lubbock)
Gametracker: www.texastech.com/gametracker
Streaming video: TexasTechTV.com
Listen: TexasTechTV.com
The Lady Raiders (6-2) host and play in the "Athletes in Action Classic" basketball tournament this weekend. Up first is the Nicholls State Colonels (3-3) at 5:30pm CST today in The USA. This will be the second meeting between these teams with Tech winning the game in Nov 2012. The game will be streamed on TexasTechTV and broadcast on the radio 97.3 FM Lubbock. For those of you who are basketball fans there are two games before the men's basketball game. UTSA plays Houston at 3pm followed by Texas Tech v Nicholls at 5:30pm and then the Tech men play at 8pm. The Lady Raider have not lost a home game this season so I am hopeful they win all three of their games this weekend.
The Colonels have had a back and forth season so far with wins and losses in every other game and are trying to avoid a losing streak after falling to Louisiana Tech on Monday, Dec 15th. Nicholls State lost their leading scorer and point guard, Emani White, after the third game of the season with an injury in practice. The Colonels Senior Guard, Jenny Nash, is leading the team with 12.6 ppg, 7.7 rpg, and 3.1 apg and has 9 blocks this season. Nash is assisted by Sophomore Center Marina Lilly with 8 ppg, 5.4 rpg. Junior Guard Veronica Ryan averages 7 ppg and Freshman Forward Ekiya Gray with 5.9 ppg and 3.7 rpg. Junior Guard Hope Pawlowski gets 4.9 ppg and 2.9 rpg and Freshman Guard Tia Charles averages 6.4 ppg and 3 rpg. The Colonels continue to be one of the best free throw shooting teams, ranking 56th in the nation at 72.3 percent. Four players accurately shoot 75% or better from the charity-stripe: Hope Pawlowski (90.9%), Jenny Nash (77.8%), Marina Lilly (75%) and Veronica Ryan (75%).
I did not like what I saw last Sunday against UT-PA. The Lady Raiders came out extremely slow and their set-ups were poor and their teamwork was lacking. They were coming off of an eleven day hiatus for Fall exams but it was an ugly game to watch in the first half. Tech failed to score in the first 5 minutes of play and the first two points on the board for the Lady Raiders came from free-throw shots by Olabode Dayo. It was a blessing in disguise that UT-PA did not play their best game either but they scored the first 7 points of the game. The final score was Texas Tech 50 v UT-PA 42. Like I mentioned before the 1st half was very hard to watch with Tech only completing 28.6% of their shots. The Lady Raiders went into the half tied at 18 points. The 2nd half went back and forth and was a very physical game with Texas Tech pulling out the win by completing 6 of 6 FT shots in the final 2 minutes. The outside game lacked with no three pointers made from 14 attempts. The main positive for this game was that more than half of the Lady Raiders points came from points-in-the-paint.
The Starters for tonight's game are: Sophomore Guard Minta Spears who averages 10.5 ppg and is 81.8% accurate at the charity stripe; Junior Guard Rayven Brooks has 7.1 ppg and 3.8 rpg and 16 Steals this season; Freshman Forward Dayo Olabode averages 12 ppg points and 7 rebounds ; Senior Forward Kelsi Baker averages 11 ppg and 5.3 rebounds; and Senior Guard Amber Battle averages 13.5 ppg and 8.5 rebounds. Both Baker and Battle make more than 77% of their free-throw shots.
Keep the wins coming ..... Wreck'Em !!!!
Quote from HC Candi Whitaker on if the long layoff had any effect on the team:
"Rough game back. Not real happy with how we played on either end. There were some pieces that we looked like we practiced, but happy we could get a win. We have to be much better and we know that. I don't like a 10-day break like we had. I think it's too long. I thought we practiced really well for the first six or seven (days). I was really happy with our practice for the first week, and then it just started to get bad. I think it's too long. We need to try to get a game immediately after finals and try to shorten that as much as we can. I think you can go too long and I felt like that's why we were a little rusty."
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The game can be heard on the radio 93.7 FM (Lubbock and on the Texas Tech Sports Network )
For a fee the game can be viewed via streaming video on TexasTechTV.com
Live stats will be available on Gametracker at TexasTech.com.