Per GoBearcats:
Houston gained all the separation it needed on a 16-0 run that transpired the first and second quarters for a 67-45 victory over Cincinnati in the first round of the AAC Women’s Basketball Championships on Monday.
The sixth-seeded Cougars were able to avenge Cincinnati’s 71-56 win in Houston on Jan. 19. The loss also snapped a five-year streak by the Bearcats in which it won at least one tournament game, including the 2020 title-game run.
“First off, I just want to congratulate Houston on a great game,” head coach Michelle Clark-Heard said. “we fought back. We cut the lead to 11. I think there’s something that we kind of have done all season. Sometimes we get off to good starts, sometimes we don’t, and then we battle back. And then we just make costly turnovers.”
Houston ended the first quarter on a 10-0 run over the final 1:40 to lead 18-7. It became a 16-0 spurt before Jadyn Scott swished a jumper from the wing at 5:42, a 24-9 difference.
The Bearcats gained a bit of momentum by going 3-for-4 at the foul line, courtesy of a Cougar technical foul, at 2:44. After two stops, two Mashaire free-throws and another Scott jumper, Houston called a timeout up 31-20 at 2:03.
Houston led 34-20 at the break. Arame Niang’s triple at 3:28 in the third was not only her first of the year; it also pulled the Bearcats to within its closest second-half deficit at 44-32.
“If you look at a lot of our games, we were in and were close,” Clark-Heard said. “But then there were big mistakes and big runs that other teams had. So, it’s about working defensively to get stops and do those things. That’s what we talked about in the locker room. The offseason is going to be really crucial for us in our growth, in our growth for our program.”
