Houston women’s basketball shows resilience in loss to BYU

Houston fought its hardest against the odds, but would eventually falter 79-64 to BYU in an all-out cougar contest.

The red-clad Cougars had to face adversity before the opening tipoff, as usual starters graduate forward Amirah Abdur-Rahim, graduate guard Briana Peguero and senior guard TK Pitts were suspended for the contest and graduate guard Kateri Poole was ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, leaving them with only six available players for the game.

But despite this, they were able to keep the game competitive for the majority of the contest.

“We were short-handed today,” coach Matthew Mitchell said. “I thought they fought hard to get us a chance to earn a victory.”

Despite playing a zone defense, Mitchell’s team kept up their disruptive nature against the navy and blue Cougars, ending the game winning the turnover margin 21-19 and scoring 18 points off said turnovers.

Houston shot the ball well in the first half of the game as well, going 44.4% from the field, 57.1% from 3-point range and connecting on five of its six free throws. At halftime, Houston was only down 38-33.

However, shooting woes came back to bite the Cougars in red when it mattered the most. At one point, they were down only by two and entered the fourth quarter down only by 10.

But in the second half, they shot 30.3% from the field and 22.2% from downtown. In the fourth, they went 3-16 from the field and connected only on one of their five 3-point attempts as BYU started to put the game out of reach.

The Cougars in blue had five players reach double-digit points, with sophomore guard Delaney Gibb leading the way with 19.

Houston had three players reach double-digits, with redshirt senior guard Kyndall Hunter leading the way with 19 off the bench.

The ladies in red now fall to 6-10, with a 0-5 record to start conference play.

They’ll look to end their five-game losing streak on Tuesday, Jan. 13 at Lubbock when they take on the No. 17 Texas Tech Red Raiders.