Arkansas Holds Off Tulsa Women

Arkansas held off the Tulsa women on Sunday afternoon by a score of 64-53 in front of 1,050 fans at the Donald W. Reynolds Center. Arkansas improved to 8-2 on the season, while Tulsa fell to a record of 4-5.

Tulsa's Antoinet Webster and Kelsee Grovey paced the Hurricane with 11 points apiece, while Mariah Turner and Ashley Clark each added nine points for the Hurricane. Arkansas' Jhasmin Bowen and Kelsey Brooks shared game-scoring highs with 17 points apiece, while Bowen had a game-best 12 rebounds. Jessica Jackson added 15 points for the Razorbacks.

“Today we just weren't very good offensively,” said Tulsa Head Coach Matilda Mossman. “I did think we guarded well, but we spent too much time on the defensive end, and on the offensive end we couldn't get anything going. In the first 20 minutes we allowed them to change our shots and we took bad shots.”

Arkansas dominated the glass with a 47-32 advantage and had 18 second-chance points off of 13 offensive rebounds compared to zero put-back points for the Hurricane on the same amount of offensive boards.

“Our effort on the boards was much better in the second half as we only gave up four second-chance points and two offensive rebounds, but we just couldn't find ways to score,” added Mossman.

Tulsa trailed by as many as 15 points in the second half against the Razorbacks, and could never get any closer than eight points five different times in the final 30 minutes. The Hurricane got as close as eight points one final time at 59-51 with 3:59 left on the game clock, and had chances over the next 2:51 to cut into the lead even more. In that time span, Tulsa forced three Arkansas turnovers and held the Razorbacks from attempting a shot, but missed six shot attempts of their own.

Jackson put the Razorbacks ahead by 11 on a three-pointer at the 1:08 mark, snapping a 3:18 drought for the Razorbacks. Tulsa scored only two points in the final 3:59 on a Kadan Brady layup with 0:08 on the game clock.

Tulsa led in the early going 5-2, but the Razorbacks scored the next eight points and led 10-5 at the 16:45 mark of the first half. The Hurricane cut the Arkansas lead to one point at 11-10, before the Razorbacks went on a 9-0 run to take a 19-10 lead with 13:34 left on the first half clock.

The Hurricane cut the UA lead to six points at the 10:48 mark when Webster's three-pointer made the score 21-15. Arkansas scored nine straight points as the Hurricane failed to score over the next 9:22 and trailed 30-15 with under two minutes remaining in the first half. Webster knocked down her third first-half trey to end the scoring drought for the Hurricane at the 1:48 mark and Grovey's three-pointer with 0:04 left in the first half put the score at 30-21 at the intermission.

Webster had nine first-half points on three treys to lead the Hurricane, while Jackson led the Razorbacks with 10 points. Arkansas dominated in the paint the first 20 minutes, outscoring the Hurricane 16-4 and had 14 second-chance points.

Tulsa is back at the Reynolds Center Thursday against the New Orleans Privateers with a game time of 7 p.m.