Recurringly for Houston women’s basketball, fast offensive starts against the Big 12’s top competition have cashed in nothing more than a pipe dream after the first quarter.
In the case of its 85-61 blowout loss in a rematch of No. 18 Texas Tech at Fertitta Center Saturday, 32 turnovers translated into 40 points towards separation for the Lady Raiders.
“I’ve been on the other end of that before, where pressure really just makes you hesitant, makes you second guess yourself,” said coach Matthew Mitchell, of the team rated third in the Big 12 in opponent turnovers. “When you start doing that against a team that high-quality, the turnovers can start happening.
Despite the boards and paint points coming in positive margins, the defining margin was Houston’s minus-11 in its ball security.
It spoiled a season-high 18 points from graduate forward Amirah Abdur-Rahim among three double-digit scorers and how Houston held a lead no larger than five off an early 7-0 run, with its last lead evaporating after just five and a half minutes of play.
In diminishing the chances of another Houston lead, senior guard Bailey Maupin posted 25 points and a season-high five triples among the Lady Raiders’ 11 on the night.
On the other end, graduate guard Briana Peguero hoisted the Cougars’ two lone makes from beyond the arc towards her 12 points.
All were the subject of the last of Houston’s tight three-game stretch in six days that began with its first Big 12 win under Mitchell, in which he partly attributed the mistakes and shooting woes to the team’s tiredness from the stretch.
“I think you saw just a slow erosion of our energy throughout the game,” he said. “That’s just something that we’ll have to work on, learn from and learn how to handle a tough stretch a little bit better than we did today.”
Despite that erosion, it didn’t come without props from Texas Tech coach Krista Gerlich towards Mitchell’s program, for which she nodded to Houston’s presence as “scary” in a season of record depth for the Big 12.
“He’s such a good coach and they play extremely hard,” Gerlich said. “I admire him a lot because you can tell he’s teaching them and coaching them to play the way he wants them to play and he’s not going to deviate from that.”
It’s another recurrence of opponent coaching recognition for the product Mitchell has put together through 23 games.
The Cougars, at 7-16 overall and 1-11 in Big 12 play, will cap off their two-game homestand in hosting Colorado on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 6:30 p.m. at Fertitta Center.
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