| |
RECAP
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) -- The North Carolina Tar Heels are
peaking at the perfect time.
LaQuanda Barksdale scored seven of her 27 points during a
decisive 15-0 first-half run Monday night as the Tar Heels
overpowered upstart Rice 83-50 in a second-round NCAA West Regional
game.
The Tar Heels (20-12), who have won eight of their last nine
games, next face fourth-ranked Georgia in the round of 16 Saturday
at Portland, Ore. The top-seeded Bulldogs (31-3) advanced with an
83-64 victory over Stanford.
North Carolina, seeded fifth, reached the third round for the
seventh time in eight years. The Tar Heels won the national
championship in 1994.
"There was a time when we were 12-11," North Carolina coach
Sylvia Hatchell said. "This team's come a long way, I'm very proud
of them. Our defense gets better each game, we're playing our best
basketball."
Hatchell said her team will remain on the West Coast until the
weekend.
"Georgia looked great," Hatchell said. "They've got to come
across country. This is like home for us now."
Playing in its first NCAA Tournament, Rice (22-12) lost for only
the second time in 12 games. The 13th-seeded Lady Owls reached the
second round by upsetting fourth-seeded UC Santa Barbara 67-64
Saturday night, snapping the ninth-ranked Gauchos' 26-game winning
streak.
"We got beat by a better team," Rice coach Cristy McKinney
said. "I'm a little disappointed in our play. Part of that was the
fact that they have been here before.
"We started well, but then we got a little bug-eyed and didn't
recover. We got good looks early and we didn't make the shots. This
led to turnovers, they made a big run, we got impatient, then
everything just snowballed."
A sellout crowd of 5,824 watched the first-round doubleheader at
the Thunderdome. All tickets were sold for the second game, but
only 1,528 attended, according to UCSB officials -- no surprise
considering the host Gauchos weren't involved.
Nikki Teasley had 16 points and nine assists for the Tar Heels,
and Barksdale had 10 rebounds. Marla Brumfield led Rice with 14
points, and Kim Smallwood added 11.
"Our mentality was to take nothing for granted at all,"
Teasley said, adding that the defensive effort was probably her
team's best of the season.
Barksdale said her personal goal in the game was to play better
defense.
"I thought I did OK in the first half, but it went down in the
second half," she said. "Hopefully, I can pick it up next game."
Looking much sharper from the outside than Saturday night, when
they needed to rally from an 11-point deficit to beat Maine 62-57,
the Tar Heels never trailed in this game.
It was 8-8 when North Carolina took command, outscoring the Lady
Owls 30-7, capped by the 15-0 run to make it 38-15.
Daneesh McIntosh's jumper with 2½ minutes left in the half ended
a Rice scoring drought of nearly seven minutes, and it was 47-22 at
halftime. The Lady Owls committed 14 turnovers and made only 34.6
percent of their shots in the first 20 minutes.
Rice's 22 points were the fewest scored by a Tar Heels opponent
in the first half all season, and North Carolina's lead reached 31
points before two minutes had been played in the second half.
North Carolina's Jackie Higgins played despite spending time in
the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital on Sunday night after
eating crab legs and suffering an allergic reaction. She had 10
points and eight rebounds.
| |
ALSO SEE
Womens College Basketball Scoreboard
Rice NCAA Team Report
North Carolina NCAA Team Report
|
