This will be the third meeting between the Texas Longhorns and the Northwestern Lady Demons from Natchitoches, LA. Texas holds a 2-0 edge in the series which started in 2010 with the second game last year. The Lady Demons bring a 4-3 record and a two game losing streak to the game Sunday. Texas is 7-0 to start the season. Just an FYI, Texas VB beat the Lady Demons VB team 3-0 in the first round of the NCAA playoffs last Thursday, Dec. 04, 2014. Nneka is 8 pts away from reaching 1000 pts. Keep an eye on that as she could hit it by halftime. The teams do not have common opponent but both will have played Texas A&M by Christmas. Northwestern State lost to the Aggies 75-42 on December 03 while Texas will face off with them on the 21st. The Lady Demons from Northwestern State have only one player averaging in double figures in points per game: Keisha Lee (# 3, 5-5 Jr. G) who is at 10.9 ppg. One point behind is Amy Staha (# 1, 5-10 Soph. G) who is from Pflugerville High School. She should have been a teammate of Nneka. Presley Owens (# 15, 6-1 Sr. F) and TaSheena Moore (# 4, 5-8 Jr. G) average 8.7 and 8.4 ppg, respectively. However, Moore has not played in the last two games and I was unable to find anything about whether she will be available for the Texas game. Owens owns the top FG% at 49.0% on 25-51 FGs. She is the leader in FGs made while Lee leads in FGs attempted (24-62). For every three shots Northwestern State takes, a little more than one is a three. 34% of their shots is a trey. The Lady Demons are shooting even worse as a team than Texas does. They make 23.9% of their treys compared to 29.3% for Texas. The Lady Demons have five players that average at least 2 treys a game with only one connecting on more than 30%. Staha has hit 12 of 35 (34.3%). Chelsea Rogers (# 12, 5-9 Sr. G) has 7 treys on 31 attempts (22.6%). Lee has hit 4 of 14 (28.6%) from BTA. Janelle Perez (# 13, 5-2 Jr. G) has made 5-18 3s (27.8%). Beatrice Attura (# 30, 5-7 Soph. G) has connected on 2-18 (11.1%). Lee has been the most successful at getting to the FT line, making 24-34 FTs (70.6%). Sami Thomas (# 5, 5-5 Fr. G) has the best FT% at 90.0% (9-10). Owens (11-13, 84.6%) is the player over 80%. Moore (10-13, 76.9%) and Staha (11-14, 78.6%) are the others making at least 70% of their FTs. Janelle Perez is the Lady Demons top distributor at 3.4 apg. Second is Rogers with 2.6 apg. Four others average between 1.1 and 1.6 apg. Only two players do not have a steal for Northwestern State. Lee is the only one who has reached double figures with 18 steals. Rogers with 6 and Janelle Perez with 5 rank second and third, respectively. In seven games, the Lady Demons have a total of five blocks. Owens tops the team with three blocks. There are 14 players on the roster for Northwestern State. 13 have played in at least five games. Robin Richardson (# 50, 5-9 Soph. G) has yet to play this season. Moore, after starting the first five games, has missed the last two. Lee, Owens and Janelle Perez have started all seven games for the Lady Demons. Rogers has six starts. Staha has three. Attura, Thomas and Tia Youngblood (# 44, 5-10 Fr. G) have played in all seven games with all averaging over 10 minutes per game. Janelle Perez tops the team in mpg with 28.7 while the rest of the starters average at least 24 mpg. Moore was averaging 22 mpg in her five games. Staha has replaced Moore in the starting lineup the last two games with Lee, Owens, Janelle Perez and Rogers joining her. Although Janelle Perez and Jackie Perez (# 14, 5-5 Fr. G) graduated from different high schools in El Paso, the two guards are sisters. The Horns continue to have three players with double figure scoring averages: Kelsey (13.3 ppg), Nneka (12.3 ppg) and Ariel (10.6 ppg). Four others average between 7.3 and 8.6 ppg. Three players are making over 50% of their shots: Kelsey (44-73, 60.3%), Nneka (33-55, 60.0%) and Brianna (25-47, 53.2%). The next closest percentage wise is Ariel at 42.3% (22-52). While Kelsey leads the team in FGs made and attempted as well as FG %, Empress (22-59, 37.3%) joins Nneka and Ariel in having reached at least 50 FGs attempted this season. Brianna and Brooke (18-45, 40.0%) should reach that threshold by the time this six game home stand ends next Wednesday. Brooke has dipped slightly below 50% from behind the arc (11-24, 45.8%). Both Ariel (3-6) and Brianna (1-2) are at 50% although neither is a big threat from BTA. Celina (3-10, 30.0%) and Brady (4-12, 33.3%) remain the main 3pt shooters along with Brooke. Empress may be finding her stroke from BTA as well. Nneka (20-35, 57.1%) and Ariel (27-31, 87.1%) are the first two Longhorns to reach 30 FTs attempted for the season. Ariel and Nneka lead the team in FTs made. Empress (15-22, 68.2%), Brady (16-19, 84.2%) and Tasia (12-15, 80.0%) join Ariel and Nneka in reaching double figures in FTs made. Ariel is tops in FT%. While the team FT% of 66.3% is fifth in the league this week, it did go up from 65.2% after their last game.The top three rebounders for Texas are Nneka (8.4 rpg), Kelsey (6.0 rpg) and Brianna (5.3 rpg). Celina’s 3.0 apg leads three others who average at least 2 apg: Brady (2.7 apg), Empress (2.1 apg) and Ariel (2.0 apg). Ariel’s 15 steals leads the Horns. Brooke with nine is second. No question that Kelsey (9 blocks) and Nneka (11 blocks) are the shotblockers on the team. Combined, they have 20 of the team’s 27 blocks. Nneka is fourth in the league in bpg while Kelsey is tied for 7th. Texas has 13 of its 14 players on the roster ready to play. Still missing but getting closer to returning to the court is Imani. Kelsey, Nneka and Empress have started all seven games to date. Celina has started the last six while Brady has gotten starts the last two games. Ariel and Krystle are the other players with at least one start. No one averages more than Kelsey’s 27.4 mpg. Six players average at least 21 mpg. Four others average double figures. That’s a pretty solid 10 player rotation with three others also getting into most games. The last game saw Brady, Nneka, Kelsey, Empress and Celina on the court to start the game. Projected starters based on the last game: [pre] Texas Northwestern State Nneka (6-1 Sr. F) Owens (6-1 Sr. F) Kelsey (6-5 Soph. C) Staha (5-10 Soph. G) Brady (5-11 RS Jr. G) Lee (5-5 Jr. G) Empress (5-7 Jr. G) Rogers (5-9 Sr. G) Celina (5-8 Jr. G) Perez (5-2 Jr. G) [/pre] This should be another game where the Texas posts dominate. Owens at 6-1 is the tallest player on the Lady Demons roster along with Ndey Sonko (# 24, 6-1 Fr. F). Cross is the only other player who is at least 6 feet tall. Northwestern State will counter Texas’ height with shooting from BTA. They average 19 3pt attempts a game. They may try more in this game. The Horns’ perimeter players will look to lock down Lee and Staha, which would take away the Lady Demons top two scorers. The Lady Demons are likely to collapse inside to try to take away the Horns’ inside game and force Texas to shoot from the perimeter, especially considering their 3pt shooting percentage is under 30%. One area where Northwestern State will have problems in is rebounding. Texas has excelled in rebounding, keeping opponents from second chances and providing plenty of their own. TEAM STATISTICS Texas (7-0) NW State (4-3) -------------------------------------------------------------- SCORING.................. 540 417 Points per game........ 77.1 59.6 Scoring margin......... +23.2 +3.9 FIELD GOALS-ATT.......... 203-446 148-391 Field goal pct.......... .455 .379 FG made per game. 29.0 21.1 FG att. per game… 63.7 55.9 3 POINT FG-ATT........... 24-82 32-134 3-point FG pct.......... .293 .239 3-pt FG made per game.. 3.4 4.6 3-pt FG att. per game….. 11.7 19.1FREE THROWS-ATT.......... 110-166 89-132 Free throw pct.......... .663 .674 F-Throws made per game. 15.7 12.7 FTs attempted per game... 23.7 18.9 REBOUNDS................. 324 261 Rebounds per game...... 46.3 37.3 Rebounding margin...... +16.2 -1.3 ASSISTS.................. 114 89 Assists per game....... 16.3 12.7 TURNOVERS................ 106 98 Turnovers per game..... 15.1 14.0 Turnover margin........ +3.5 +3.0 Assist/turnover ratio.. 1.1 0.9 STEALS................... 61 53 Steals per game........ 8.7 7.6 BLOCKS................... 27 5 Blocks per game........ 3.7 0.7 WINNING STREAK........... 7 -0- Home win streak........ 5 4 ATTENDANCE............... 18666 2435 Home games-Avg/Game.... 5-3733 4-609 [pre] Ave. Score by Period: 1st 2nd OT Total -------------------- ---- ---- ---- ----- Texas............... 39.9 35.6 1.7 77.1 NW State............ 30.4 29.1 - 59.6 [/pre] The stats overwhelming favor Texas. Texas needs to play their game and not look ahead to the A&M game next week. The Lady Demons have not had much luck playing on the road so far this season, going 0-3 as visitors. This matchup does not look like the time that they will get their first road win. There will be a Kids Clinic after the game. The main things about the clinic:
Did anyone get a good look at Atkins? I sit in the other side so it was hard to tell. I think I saw her During timeouts she stil went into the huddle and had a slight limp but I was unable to see if she had a boot on or crutches for walking to and from the lockeroom. It was another great played game. No need for three pointers when our post game is that easy.
She was wearing a boot and on Crutches I really wanted to have her available for the A&m game but that seems doubtful
Thanks for the info. That's really sucks for her and the team. I think we still can handle aggy if we play remotely near where we've been playing this whole year.
