Lone Star Conference 2015 Women's Basketball Tournament
Texas A&M University-Commerce (13-13, 7-9) vs. Cameron University (15-10, 12-4)
Allen Events Center, Allen, Texas
Noon, Thu., March 5
Audio transcript:
Mark Haslett: The Texas A&M University-Commerce men’s and women’s basketball teams will play in the first round of this year’s Lone Star Conference tournament tomorrow at the Allen Events Center. The men have an 8:30 p.m. tip-off against West Texas A&M, while the women will play Cameron at noon. The women’s team has a tough task: Winning in the postseason without senior guard Ashlee Johnson. Johnson will miss the tournament due to injury. Lions head coach Jason Burton says that freshman forward Artejah Gay and junior guard Gabby Scott will play a more important role in order to compensate for the absence of Johnson. This week Johnson was recognized as the Lone Star Conference defensive player of the year.
Jason Burton: We’re going to have to change some things defensively. That’s a key piece of our defense. She’s one of our better on-ball defenders. We normally put Ashlee on the other team’s best player, and so that’s been a challenge that we’ve had to think about, as far as how to guard Cameron because they’re so guard-oriented. Artejah Gay will start at the three for us and we’ll slide Gabby to the two, but naturally we’re going to have change some things up, do a little bit more zone, use our length versus their speed, and kind of make them have to shoot over us. [We’ll] try to pack the paint a little bit more and contain their drive, but at the same time they’ve got two very good shooters that we have to make sure we know where they are on the floor, and hopefully we can use our length to still contest those shots, but we’ve definitely got use our size and dominate the boards.
Haslett: The Lions finished this season 13-13 overall and 7-9 in conference play. Cameron won both regular-season games against A&M-Commerce. In January, the Aggies escaped from Commerce with a single-point victory. In February, the Lions traveled to Lawton, Oklahoma, and almost picked up a win at Cameron, before a late surge helped the Aggies sweep the season series from A&M-Commerce.
Burton: They’re a very good team, and they’re well-coached. It was a one-point game here. We had a chance for a last second shot to win the game here, and things didn’t go our way. At their place we played exceptionally well pretty much for the whole game. [We] had the lead for most of the game and late. Their best shooter, Brandi Leal, got hot late and hit some threes from very deep. I’m talking four or five feet beyond the arc and hit some threes. Sometimes there are some shots that if she can bury that shot and it’s the best shot they can get in that possession, you kind of live with it, and so they hit some shots down the stretch and we missed some shots we probably should’ve made and wish we could go back and shoot them again. The thing is we played them close both games. I feel confident going to the conference tournament that we’ll do the same thing again.
Haslett: Burton is concluding his first year as Lions head coach, but he’s no stranger Commerce. An alumnus of Austin College, Burton used to be an assistant on the staff of Lions men’s coach Sam Walker. Not many people outside of Northeast Texas thought that Lions would make the conference tournament this year in what looked to a be a rebuilding season for the program. But Burton ended up leading the ladies to a middle-of-the-pack finish and has already totaled more victories than any other first-year women’s hoops coach in school history.
Burton: Everybody on this team bought in to changing the culture of this program, buying into what the coaches had to say every day, and they put all their personal egos and personal accomplishments that they may want aside and focus on this team winning. It’s been about team and that’s why we’ve had success this game. If you look at the box-scores, it’s almost a different lead scorer every game. There’s multiple games where we have eight or nine girls that scored and they scored in the 8-10 range. It’s been a team effort throughout this year and this team just bought in to doing things a different way and doing whatever it takes to succeed.
Lionathletics.com news release:
The Texas A&M University-Commerce women’s basketball team (13-13; 7-9 in LSC) is set to tip off the Lone Star Conference Championships on Thursday with a first-round matchup with the third seeded Cameron Aggies (15-10; 12-4 in LSC).
The Lions and Aggies have faced twice previously during the course of the year, with Cameron securing wins in both matchups. However, both games were close, evidenced by A&M-Commerce’s losses only coming by a combined seven points. In their first meeting in Commerce, the Aggies escaped with a 65-64 win thanks to Charron Montgomery coming off the bench to score 18 points on a perfect 7 of 7 shooting. A few weeks later, the Lions made the trek to Oklahoma, and wound up leading for the majority of the contest, led by La’Tisha Hearne’s 16 point, eight rebound night. However, Cameron seized the momentum in the waning minutes before pulling ahead at last on the back of a 22-9 effort by Jazzmine Robinson on 11 of 12 shooting from the free throw line. Now, fans can tune into the winner-take-all contest on either 88.9 KETR or 107.1 Thunder Country.
Hearne enters the game as the top-rebounder for the Lions (fifth in the LSC) on the season with 7.1 per game, and she’ll be chasing history when the game tips off. The senior is currently tied for sixth on the all-time rebounding list with 590 career-rebounds. With just one more against Cameron, she’ll seize sole possession of sixth place, moving past Stacy Norell, who played from 1989 to 1993.
In their first game in Commerce, Artaejah Gay was the leading scorer with 14 points and nine rebounds, adding a block and a steal in 22 minutes of play. LSC Honorable Mention Gabby Scott meanwhile was effective in both outings against the Aggies. In Commerce, Scott had a balanced line of eight points and seven assists, and in her second game at Aggie Gym, scored nine points. Abigail Leaupepe-Tele’s second look against Cameron was a success, as the senior led all rebounders with 12 boards, chipping in eight points and two blocks.
For the Aggies, Jazzmine Robinson has been their heartbeat, averaging a conference-best 18.1 PPG and 7.9 RPG, the fourth-best mark in the LSC. Before going off in her second game against the Lions, she was held to a nine point, seven rebound night in Commerce. Beyond Robinson, the Aggies have a pair of knock-down three point shooters in Brandi Leal and Jade Herl. The two rank one and two in the conference in threes per game with 3.7 and 2.7 per game respectively. Herl ranks as the second most accurate three-point shooter in the conference and also leads all players with 33.6 minutes per game.
As a team, the Aggies’ excellent shooting is beyond reproach. They rank second in the conference in scoring (71.0 PPG), and first in the conference in three-pointers per game with 7.7. Conversely however, they rank last in the conference in offensive rebounds per game (10.5 ORPG), but more strikingly, defense, for they allow a league-worst 73.0 PPG to opponents. The Lions enter the contest as the top-rebounding team in the conference (41.1 RPG), and could take advantage of CU’s shortcomings with sound defensive work on the perimeter.
The Lions and Aggies have played one another 42 times, and the all-time series is all knotted up at 21-21. The team that seizes the lead in the series will go on to face the Midwestern State Mustangs, who defeated the Eastern New Mexico Zias by a score of 70-49 to move to the second round of the Tournament.
Tipoff is scheduled for Thursday, March 5 at noon in the Allen Event Center.
