Before Saturday’s game at H.O. Clemmons Arena, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff women’s basketball coach Dawn Thornton challenged guard Zaay Green.
“She played really, really well in the preseason, but I hadn’t seen that same tenacity that I normally see in her,” Thornton said. “So we talked about it a little bit before the game. She does like she always do: she looked me in the face and said, ‘I got you, Coach.’”
Green responded with her third triple-double of the season as UAPB defeated Florida A&M 85-62.
UAPB (8-9, 3-1 SWAC) was coming off an 85-80 road loss to Texas Southern in which Green scored a season-low 2 points. The win was a needed bounce-back for UAPB and also for Green.
Green finished the game with 20 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. Her previous two triple-doubles came against non-Division I foes, but this one came in conference play, which she said makes it more special.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“Everybody, anybody is out for us,” Green said. “You can win. You can lose. You never know, but I just know that wasn’t really my intention to get that triple-double, but it happened. Plus, my teammates helped me have that, too.”
Also for UAPB, Maori Davenport scored 10 points and collected 10 rebounds. Maya Peat scored 16 points, Jelissa Reese scored 14, and Kaila Walker finished with 13.
Florida A&M (2-13, 1-3) got 22 points from Olivia Delancy, who entered the game leading the SWAC in scoring in conference games. But only two other Lady Rattlers scored more than 6 points: Nashani Gilbert scored 12, and Ahriahna Grizzle finished with 10.
UAPB’s defense also shone by forcing 25 turnovers, including three shot-clock violations. UAPB scored 33 points off turnovers while allowing 13.
Thornton said UAPB made a few defensive tweaks after allowing 85 points at Texas Southern.
“Actually, being back in Houston, we kind of started to scout a little bit early once we realized that we couldn’t play Prairie View on Monday,” Thornton said. “So we locked in, made the adjustments that we needed to make, especially at halftime. Coming back out, we went to man and I thought that that kind of gave us those stops that we wanted to have early so we could push back and kind of get over the hump.”
UAPB built a lead in each of the first three quarters, but each time Florida A&M made a late run to close the gap. UAPB was up 35-32 at halftime after Delancy completed a 4-point play with 0.9 of a second on the clock. UAPB got its own 4-point play late in the third from Walker, but Florida A&M’s Hailee Brennan beat the buzzer with a jumper to narrow the Lions’ lead to 59-51.
The Lady Lions dominated the fourth quarter 26-11 to turn a competitive game into a comfortable win. Thornton said she told her team that Florida A&M wouldn’t go away, so they had to finish.
“We had to understand, we had to get every rebound,” Thornton said. “We had to dive on the floor and get 50-50 balls. We had to do the dirty work and limit them, and so I think we forced turnovers, sat back defensively, made it harder for them to guard and only gave them tough 2s.”
UAPB will host Bethune-Cookman at 5:30 p.m. Monday.