 "Photo: May-Ying Lam, Daily Texan Staff")
The Texas women’s basketball team is readying itself for a match up against in-state foe Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (1-1) on Thursday night after three games in consecutive nights – a stretch that the Longhorns finished with three impressive wins.
Texas has now started off the season a perfect 3-0 a total of 15 times in its 35-year history.
“I think we started off really good this season,” junior guard Brittainey Raven said. We played three pretty good teams, and they gave us a test out there. We have been working on some things in practice, and these three games showed us what we needed to work on, and it also showed us what we’ve improved with.”
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi comes into Thursday’s game against Texas after a 56-51 win against Texas Southern and an 85-51 blowout loss at the hands of the Vanderbilt Commodores.
“They played tough last year, and at the end of the game they were hot,” Raven said. “We went a little easy at the beginning of the game, but we picked it up. They’re a tough team, and they’re going to come out fighting. Every year they do. They love to play competition, so it should be a good game.”
Bench play will be an important factor again for Texas, as it was over the weekend, as the Longhorns have already played 120 minutes of high-tempo basketball during the World Vision Classic.
“This year our team is a lot tougher than last year,” Raven said of her team’s bench. “We have a deeper bench where we can go five in and five out. We don’t have people who have to play 35 minutes anymore, so we can sub in from the bench and people can pick up where the people who were just in the game left off.”
The Longhorns’ bench scored 37 points against Dayton, 46 against St. Mary’s and 33 against Old Dominion, while holding their opponent’s bench scoring to a combined 68 points during the three games.
“I think anybody on our bench could really be starting for us,” head coach Gail Goestenkors said. “Last year we didn’t have the depth, and I felt like we coasted at times. There’s no coasting here. If we feel like you’re coasting, we’re going to sub you out anyways. I think there’s a lot of confidence coming off of the bench, and our freshmen are not playing like freshmen, which is really important for us.”
The Islanders bring to the court a scrappy style of play, and coach Goestenkors is prepared for that.
“We played them at their place last year, and we know they are a very scrappy team,” Goestenkors said. “We are looking forward to getting out on the floor and proving ourselves once again.”
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