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The top defense in the SWAC stifled the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff women’s basketball team on Saturday.
Southern University defeated UAPB 52-36 at H.O. Clemmons Arena.
UAPB coach Erica Leak said Southern plays aggressive defense.
“They’re scrappy, and they really made it difficult for us to get into our sets,” Leak said. “The full-court pressure got to us tonight, and they really sped us up. Even when we did break the press, we were sped up, and it just took us a long time to get into our sets to execute.”
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UAPB (2-15, 0-7 SWAC) made 8 of 37 shots from the field (21.6 percent), by far its worst shooting performance in conference play. The Lady Lions made 3 of 13 shots from 3-point range.
Junior guard D’Arrah Allen led UAPB with 12 points. No other player surpassed 6.
Southern (7-12, 5-1) fell short of its 64-point average in SWAC games. UAPB held the Lady Jaguars to 16 of 46 (34.8 percent) from the field, though Southern connected on six 3-pointers.
Senior forward Soniyah Reed led the Lady Jags with 16 points. She made three of five 3-point attempts.
Leak said the Lady Lions proved defense hasn’t been the reason for their struggles this year.
“We can get 10 stops in a row,” Leak said. “I think they had 35 points in the third quarter with 3 minutes remaining, and they didn’t score again until midway through the fourth quarter. We were just having trouble scoring. So, we’re getting stop after stop after stop, but we gotta score, as well. We gotta get better at that, just going through our sets daily and figuring out what works for us.”
Both teams struggled to protect the ball. UAPB finished with 29 turnovers to Southern’s 24, but the Lady Jags were much better at taking advantage, outscoring UAPB 20-7 off turnovers.
UAPB led 8-4 at one point in the first quarter, but the Lady Jaguars led 9-8 at the end of the quarter thanks to a 3-pointer by Soniyah Reed in the final 40 seconds.
Southern led the rest of the game. UAPB made one field goal in the second quarter, a 3-pointer by Uriah Jennings, while the Lady Jags pulled away to lead 26-16 at halftime. The Lady Lions again made one field goal in the third quarter, a Kristyna Boyd layup.
Leak said Southern took advantage of a change in the UAPB defense to score 17 points in the second quarter and build its lead.
“We went zone, and they were overloading,” Leak said. “We were not seeing that backside corner. They knocked down some threes, and so that kind of built a little wedge, and we were just trying to dig ourselves out the hole. We looked up, we’re down 10. We got out of it quickly and went back to our bread and butter, which is our man.”
Entering the fourth, UAPB had gotten to the free throw line much more frequently than Southern, but both teams made regular trips to the line in the fourth. Neither team made a field goal until Reed scored with 5:14 remaining. UAPB shot 17 of 24 from the line, while Southern finished 14 of 24.