Sports

Curl tries to wake team, shake things up in lineup

By Christian Schmidt
The Daily Cougar

After a 74-68 loss to Marquette, women's basketball head coach Joe Curl said Sunday it looked like only one player on his team was actually out there playing while the other four watched.

When your team has lost five of its last six games, has a record just one game above the .500 mark and was recently beaten by 49 points, it's time to shake things up.

If you're Curl, that means calling a 5:30 a.m. practice. Curl brought the Lady Cougars out for some early morning drills this week with the hope it would inspire his team to improve its play.

Of course, this isn't the first move Curl has made to encourage his team. Two weeks ago, he benched senior point guard Lashinda Winters and starting freshman guard Shondra Bush, whose 16.3 points per game are second on the team to junior guard Chandi Jones.

Curl has tried to inject some new life into the team by letting sophomore guard Sara Hinkley and freshman guard Crystal Simpson see more action in recent games.

The Lady Cougars need to find a way to turn things around, and early morning workouts will be a small price to pay if UH can pull out of the nosedive it has been in. The team is 10-9 (2-5 in Conference USA) with eight games remaining in the regular season.

Houston heads into Fort Worth at 2 p.m. Sunday for a conference showdown with Texas Christian in sore need of a win to regain confidence and improve before the conference tournament in March.

TCU is 9-11 overall and also has a 2-5 record in conference play.

UH beat the Lady Horned Frogs 64-50 on Jan. 12, the first conference game for either team. Since that game, Houston is 1-5. TCU's 2-4 record isn't much better.

Of course, going up to Forth Worth won't be easy. The Lady Cougars are just 1-5 in road games this season, and have not won a road game against a C-USA team this year.

Jones leads the Lady Cougars with her 27.1 point per game average, second best in the nation. Jones leads the team in nearly every major category, including steals, blocks and rebounds.

Center Sandora Irvin leads TCU in points (12.0 per game), rebounds (9.3) and blocks (4.4). She is second in the nation in blocked shots per game. No other player on the team averages double figures in points.

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