By Steve Lansdale
AUSTIN, Texas — Freshman guard Celeste Taylor scored a career-high 27 points, and sophomore center Charli Collier tallied her 15th career double-double to lead the Texas women’s basketball team to an 86-76 victory over Oklahoma Saturday at the Frank Erwin Center.
The victory boosted the Longhorns’ record to 18-10 overall and 10-6 in Big 12 games, while[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] OU dropped to 12-16 overall and 5-11 in conference games.
“I thought it was a really good win for our team, considering how physical the game was and the ebb and flow of it,” Texas head coach Karen Aston said. “Sometimes when we get into games like that, we don’t respond positively but I thought we really did tonight. I thought we were ready to play when the game started, and we made adjustments that went along with what Oklahoma was giving us.”
The victory completed the Longhorns’ season sweep pof the Sooners.
Taylor was outstanding for UT, connecting on nine of 14 field goals, including four of six from three-point range. She now has hit a team-leading 31 three-pointers this season, four more than Collier’s 27.
Collier scored 14 points and pulled down 12 rebounds, while forward Joyner Holmes scored 16 points.
After ending the first quarter in a 23-23 deadlock, Oklahoma took a four-point lead early in the second quarter, but after that the period belonged to Texas. The Longhorns took the lead for good in the second quarter, outscoring the Sooners, 16-8 in the stanza, in part by limiting OU to just 12 percent shooting from the floor.
“The second quarter did us in,” Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale said. “We were 12 percent from the field in the second quarter. Part of that was because Madi Williams and Taylor Robertson were in foul trouble and we don’t quite have the depth that we need to have from a scoring standpoint, particularly to be able to recover from that. So that was a bit of the problem.”
Williams led the Sooners with 25 points, while Gabby Gregory added 21.
The victory stretched UT’s lead in the series between the schools to 35-25.
Aston said that while she was glad to win the game, she would like to see more from her team, especially on the defensive end.
“I thought our defense was just good enough,” she said. “We played in waves defensively and we’ll have to do better than that in our next couple of games. I thought fatigue set in a little bit, on both teams. It was hard-fought. Oklahoma fought hard, as did our players, but I’m really pleased with this win.”
The Longhorns can enjoy the victory for a few days, but their schedule gets decidedly more difficult this week. UT will be back in action at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in a road game at No. 2 Baylor that will be broadcast nationally on FS1.
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