Sports
 

Lady Cougars winning ugly, often in C-USA

By Christian Schmidt
The Daily Cougar

Ugly wins are still wins. UH women's basketball head coach Joe Curl knows it.

"I think that's the sign of a good team ? when you can win even when you're struggling," Curl said.

Houston (17-3, 6-1) beat Alabama-Birmingham 48-39 on Sunday and Southern Miss 62-57 on Friday. The Cougars shot a combined 29.6 percent from the field in those two games.

"Every team has those games sometimes," senior guard Chandi Jones said. "I wouldn't say we're tired, but every team goes through those kind of offensive droughts."

Jones ranks No. 12 nationally in scoring with 21.1 points per game and No. 16 in steals with 3.4 per game. 

Junior forward Sancho Lyttle is also in the national rankings, checking in at No. 44 in field-goal percentage with 54.5 percent and No. 50 in steals with 2.8 per game.

The Lady Cougars host Southern Miss (14-6, 2-5) at 7 p.m. Friday and Tulane (8-12, 1-6) at 1 p,m. Sunday in a nationally televised game. Both games are at Hofheinz Pavilion.

The Lady Cougars are tied for second place in Conference USA, just one-half game behind DePaul, which is 7-1 in C-USA play.

Houston's offensive woes have been balanced by great defense and by getting to the free-throw line. For the season, the Lady Cougars have held their opponents to 37.6 percent shooting from the field and just 56.2 points, putting them at No. 21 in the nation.

Against UAB, Houston made 17 more free throws than the Lady Blazers' attempted (nine), something Curl said he wants his team to do more often.

"We need to push the ball and beat the zone, make more passes and better passes," Curl said. "We also need to stay aggressive and draw fouls."

Jones, the team's leading scorer in all four of her years at UH, agrees. 

"(Against UAB) we got to the basket and drew fouls," Jones said. "If you do that, you just have to make your free-throws."

Jones certainly did that against the Lady Blazers, making nine of her 10 shots from the line. On the season, Jones has made 77 of her 106 free-throw attempts for 70.6 percent.

Junior center Kiki Harris made only her second start of the season Sunday against UAB, taking senior center Amanda Barksdale's spot in the starting lineup.

"It's not so much what Amanda wasn't doing as what Kiki was doing," Curl said.

Southern Miss beat Memphis 73-61 in the team's last outing. Tulane is coming off a 78-64 victory over Saint Louis.

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