After two back to back conference losses, Grambling State University women’s basketball team must now retaliate.
“It hurts when you lose at home, obviously, that’s two straight,” assistant Coach Lou Hamilton said. “So right now we got to get it turning around and make sure we play team basketball.”
In Monday’s home game against Prairie View A&M (2-3 SWAC, 2-13 Overall) the Lady Tigers could not keep their lead due to poor shot percentage from the field and turnovers. They were 2-18 from the 3-point line and had 21 turnovers.
It was a slow start for the Lady Tigers as the Lady Panthers were leading by 18 in the first half.
“It was tough to get down by that much,” Hamilton said, “it’s kind of the opposite of our last game where we were up 10-1, this game we were down by a bunch to start the game out.”
By halftime Grambling was trailing by only 9.
“Let’s come out with intensity and take the lead,” Hamilton told his players at halftime.
They then came back firing to gain the lead for the first time in the game. The score was 41-40 with less than 15 minutes left in the game.
“(We) played pretty even basketball in the second half but, obviously that wasn’t enough because you had already given up a lot on the first half.”
Victoya Ricks was the leading scorer with 17 points, followed by Joanna Miller with 16 points and Jasmine Godboldt who finished the a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds.
The Final score was 72-61.
The Lady Tigers hoped to overcome Texas Southern University (4-1 SWAC, 7-9 Overall) in their third home game in conference play, but it unfortunately did not happen.
TSU’s Jazzmin Parker outshined Grambling with 34 points in Saturday’s loss 77-63.
“The biggest thing with her is she can get to the basket,” Hamilton said, “and when they were in the bonus anytime you touched her, she was able to get to the free throw line. So the fouls were the reason why she was able to get a lot of extra points.”
Grambling shot 11 percent from the 3-point line and this, in Hamilton’s opinion, played a major role in the ending result.
“It would have been good to get about 2 or 3 more 3-pointers. That would have really helped us.” Hamilton said.
Grambling began the game solid with a 10-1 run. However, at about 9 minutes left in the half with a 2-pointer from Parker put TSU up by 1.
With 9:39 left in the game, Grambling almost earned the lead again when Jessica Watkins went up for a 2-point shot making the score 52-53. A foul from Tyler Anderson sent Parker to the free throw line, which extended TSU’s lead. Godboldt then went in for a layup. Grambling was only trailing by 1 again but still was not able to finish the game out strong.
Grambling’s leading scorer was Miller who had 18 points, then Dennisha Chambers with 15 and Godboldt with 14.
Next up for the Lady Tigers is Jackson State and they are hoping to end their two-game losing streak as they get back on the road for three straight games.
“Just as we did to get the winning streaks that we had,” Hamilton said, “we’ve got to play as a team, we got to share the basketball. . .we got to put the ball in the hole. . .we got to come out with intensity from beginning to the end and play 40 minutes of basketball.”
Jackson State is ranked No. 4 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
“These games we’ve learned a lot, so what we’ve found out is that we must play better and we can’t take Jackson State lightly. They’ve done well, so what we got to do is come up with a game plan and limit what they do and execute better.” Hamilton said.
Tipoff against Jackson State is on January 25 at 3 P.M. at the Williams Assembly Center in Jackson, Miss.