The Houston Cougars defeated the Texas State women’s basketball team Nov. 28 at home 72-67.
The loss gives the Bobcats a 4-2 record with their only other loss of the season against TCU.
Throughout the game the Bobcats struggled to knock down shots. The Bobcats top two leading scorers, senior Taeler Deer (18.8 ppg) and junior Toshua Leavitt (17.2 ppg), shot for a combined 4 for 24 from the 3-point line and an overall 10 for 39 for the game.
The team as a whole shot 31 percent from the field and 18 percent from the 3-point line. Head coach Zenarae Antoine said any time you have a shooting night like that, it’s going to be hard to win.
“If we have a tough shooting night we have to do a better job defensively,” said Antoine. “We put a lot of stress on our defense by turning the ball over and any time you turn over the ball to a team that that’s what they do to score, just force bad shots and get you to turn the ball over, it’s going to be a rough night.”
The Bobcats won the tightly contested first quarter after senior Ti’Aria Pitts laid the ball in on a fast break with 0.2 seconds left on the clock.
However, in the second quarter, Cougar Dorian Branch made a 3-point field goal with 40 seconds left in the half to break the tie between the Bobcats and the Cougars.
The second half did not go in favor of the Bobcats. The Cougars started off the half by extending the lead to 9-points by the end of the third quarter.
The Bobcats showed plenty of effort down the stretch against the Cougars, but they started breaking down defensively. The Cougars point guard Jasmyne Harris torched the Bobcats defense for 22-points in the second half and for 32-points throughout the game.
Antonie said her team needs to work on poise before their next game.
“We cannot play so frantic and playing with poise is one of our keys, it’s probably the most important key that we gave up at this point,” said Antoine. “The rebounding was pretty even for the most part, we’ve got to be able to play with poise under heavy pressure. The good thing is this is still the preseason, the other good thing is they gave us a great look as to what we see against teams like Troy, teams we see like Lafayette and just preparing us for our conference play.”
The Bobcats next game will be at Strahan Coliseum against Prairie View A&M Dec. 2. Tip-Off is scheduled at 2 p.m.