Texas women’s basketball crushes Maine in NCAA first round

By Steve Lansdale

AUSTIN, Texas — Forward Jatarie White led all scorers with 17 points, and guards Ariel Atkins added 16 and Lashann Higgs chipped in with 15, leading the Texas women’s basketball team to an easy 83-54 win over Maine in the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship at the Frank Erwin Center.

The Longhorns trampled the Black Bears early, jumping out to a 23-8 lead after the first quarter and enjoying a 45-18 margin at halftime. Texas head coach Karen Aston said after the game [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]that the team’s performance before the intermission dictated the outcome.

“I was really pleased with how we started the game and really how we played the entire first half,” Aston said. “I thought that our team was very locked in, paid attention to detail, shot the ball well, did a lot of things really, really sharp in the first half.”

The victory improved the Longhorns’ record this season to 27-6, while the Black Bears’ season ends at 23-10.

Coaches often will insist that a game is determined by more subtle nuances than those that are readily apparent on a stat sheet. That often is true, but in Saturday’s game, the reasons for the outcome were obvious.

The Longhorns shot a season-best 61.8 percent (34 of 55) from the floor, including 75 percent (6 of 8) on three-pointers; by comparison, the Texas defense allowed Maine to connect on just 3-of-19 (15.8 percent) of its shots from behind the arc. UT also more than tripled Maine on the boards, pulling down 43 rebounds while allowing just 12 by the visitors; Brooke McCarty and Joyner Holmes outrebounded the Black Bears by themselves, pulling down seven boards apiece.

“I love point guards that rebound,” Aston said of McCarty. “I would have to say that’s not what I recruited Brooke to do, but I love point guards that rebound. That’s something I look at in the recruiting process, but again, not with Brooke. She has discovered ways to maneuver and pick up the loose onces when people box out.”

UT will face Arizona State in the second round Monday in a game that tips off at 8 p.m. at the Erwin Center and will be broadcast on ESPN2, on 105.3 FM in Austin or texassports.com/audio.

Aston said she thinks her team will respond well to the quick turnaround before the second round.

“I think we have experienced this quote often, just because we have this turnarounds in conference play quite a bit. So I think our team is somewhat used to that, that they’ve had … one day in between, so I don’t think that will be a surprise to them at all.”

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