Tulsa Women Advance in WBIT With Impressive 80-62 Win Over Arkansas

Thursday, March 21

6:30 PM

Tulsa

24-9,13-5AAC

Arkansas

18-15,6-10SEC

Arkansas

Tulsa

Photo by: Bill Powell

Tulsa Women Advance in WBIT With Impressive 80-62 Win Over Arkansas

3/21/2024 10:02:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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TULSA, Okla. –– Tulsa built a 17-point first-quarter lead and dominated for most of the contest in an 80-62 victory over Arkansas in a first-round game of the WBIT Thursday night in front of 1,831 fans at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

Tulsa improved to 24-9 overall, while the Lady Razorbacks closed out the season with an 18-15 record.

Tulsa will play the winner of tonight's WBIT matchup between Washington and Georgetown. Location and tipoff time for the round 2 game will be announced on Friday.

The American Athletic Conference's Player of the Year Temira Poindexter led three Golden Hurricane players in double-figures with her 21^st game scoring 20 or more points this year with 21 points. Freshman Elise Hill scored a career-high 18 points and Delanie Crawford added 17 points.

Arkansas' Maryam Dauda led all scorers with 22 points, while also adding a game-high nine rebounds.

"It feels good to win in March, doesn't it? Really excited, really proud of our team and the way that we played today," said Tulsa Head Coach Angie Nelp. "Sometimes, whenever you have just a longer break between your last game and your game in the postseason play, sometimes it takes a great amount of focus and a great amount of mental preparation, endurance, to be able to step on the floor and play the way our team played today. I'm extremely proud of them. I felt like their hunger after the conference tournament was at a high level.

"We had so many players contribute. The balance of our team, in two ways, the balance of our team from a contribution standpoint – to have players all over the court who are contributing with points and rebounds and assists. And then to be able to have a balance of a team who is versatile enough to be successful on the defensive end of the floor and successful on the offensive end of the floor and play both ends of the floor like we did today is really impressive."

Tulsa jumped out to an early 7-0 lead and expanded that to as many as 17 points in the first quarter. The Hurricane played all but the first 1:16 of the second quarter with a lead of over 20 points with the biggest margin of 28 points coming when Katia Gallegos scored on a driving layup to make the score 41-14 at the 5:19 mark.

Tulsa led by 23 at halftime, 45-22, as Poindexter led the way with 17 first-half points. The Hurricane scored seven more field goals, including five more from three-point range, while also out-rebounding the Lady Razorbacks 26-17.

In the third quarter, Tulsa held a 20+ lead for all but the final 0:03 of the period when Karley Johnson hit a three-pointer to cut the Arkansas deficit to 18 points to end the period. Tulsa led by as many as 24 in the final period, while the closest Arkansas would get was the final 18-point margin.

Tulsa finished the game shooting 44-percent from the field, 39-percent from three-point range and 80-percent from the charity stripe, while Arkansas connected on 36-percent of its field goals while being held to 21-percent from behind the arc. The Hurricane also had a 44-to-36 edge in rebounding and 20-to-9 advantage for assists.

HOW IT HAPPENED
IN THE FIRST QUARTER . . .
Tulsa opened the game on a 7-0 run before Arkansas scored its first points on a three-pointer to make the score 7-3.

The Hurricane scored the next eight points for a 15-3 lead on an Elise Hill jumper in the pain at the 5:16 mark.

Temira Poindexter's second-chance layup increased Tulsa's lead to 17 points at 22-5 with 1:47 remaining in the quarter.

The period ended with Tulsa ahead 22-7 as the Hurricane connected on only 39-percent of its shots and 25-percent from three-point range, but Razorbacks converted just 18-percent overall and 13-percent from behind the arc.

IN THE SECOND QUARTER . . .
Tulsa began the quarter on a 15-2 run, including 12 straight points to take a 37-9 lead on Poindexter three-pointer at the 6:20 mark of the quarter.

The Hurricane led by 20+ points for the final 6:38 of the first half, building its largest lead of 28 points, 41-13, at the 5:19 mark on a driving layup by Katia Gallegos.

Tulsa improved its shooting in the second quarter to 50-percent from the field and 40-percent from three-point range.

The half ended with Tulsa leading 45-22.

IN THE THIRD QUARTER . . .
Tulsa held a 20+ lead for all but the last 0:03 of the quarter when Karley Johnson hit a three-pointer to cut the Arkansas deficit to 18 points to end the period.

The biggest Tulsa lead in the period was 27 points when Hadley Periman knocked down a three-pointer from the top of the key with 7:06 remaining in the quarter.

IN THE FOURTH QUARTER . . .
Delanie Crawford's layup put Tulsa back up by 20 with the first basket of the final frame.

Tulsa led by as many as 24 in the period, while Arkansas got as close as 18 to close-out the game.

POSTGAME NOTES
• Tulsa improved to 24-9 on the season, while Arkansas closed the season at 18-15.
• This is Tulsa's seventh postseason appearance (1 WBIT, 2 NCAA, 4 WNIT) and has improved its postseason record to 4-6.
• Arkansas made its 27^th postseason appearance in school history and now sits at 18-7 in postseason play with the loss.
• Arkansas Maryam Dauda had her first 20+ scoring game this year with 22 points.
• The Tulsa win snaps a five-game losing streak in the series against the Razorbacks.
• Tulsa made double-digit three-pointers for the 13^th time this season, as the Hurricane converted on 12-of-31 treys.
• This was Tulsa's first win at home over Arkansas since the first-ever meeting on Jan. 15, 1977, as Tulsa won 55-47 … it was Tulsa's fourth win in the series against 24 defeats.
• Tulsa held a 23-point halftime lead, making it the third time this season that the Hurricane led at halftime by 20 or more points … the other two times were 33 points vs. Texas Southern and 23 points vs. Wichita State.
• Junior Temira Poindexter became the school's all-time single-season scoring leader with her 21 points, giving her 696 on the season, breaking Allison Curtin's record of 692 in the 2002-03 season.
• She has now scored double-figures in all 33 games this year and for the 78^th time in 91 career games.
• It was Poindexter's 36^th career 20+ scoring game and her 21^st this season.
• Poindexter has now scored double-digits in her last 37 games dating back to last season.
• Poindexter's 16 first-half points marked the 18^th time this season that she scored in double-figures in the first half.
• Poindexter had her 16^th game this year with 3 or more three-pointers made as she knocked down 3-of-5 treys.
• Junior Delanie Crawford had her 31^st double-figure scoring game of the season and the 57^th of her career.
• Freshman Elise Hill had her second double-digit scoring game of her career with a new career-high of 18 points.
•Hadley Periman had a team-high 7 rebounds, marking the 17^th time this year that Periman has led Tulsa in rebounding, sharing the lead tonight with Elise Hill
• Poindexter moved into fourth place on the school's all-time scoring chart with 1,522 career points, while Crawford has scored 1,157 points for ninth place.

All TU women's basketball games can be heard on 93.5 FM The Jet Radio. All games in the first three rounds of the WBIT can be seen on ESPN+.