Texas Tech Drops Fourth Quarter Heartbreaker to No. 19/16 Oklahoma

LUBBOCK, TEXAS — Despite a combined 41 points from Bryn Gerlich and Bre’Amber Scott, the Texas Tech Lady Raiders fell 89-79 Wednesday night to No. 19/16 Oklahoma at United Supermarkets Arena.

In front of another energized crowd, Texas Tech (13-4, 1-3 Big 12) got off to a strong start leading 42-38 after 20 minutes of play.

After holding Oklahoma (13-2, 3-1 Big 12) to just 14-of-39 shooting in the first half, Tech allowed the Sooners to shoot a blistering 21-of-34 from the floor, as OU outscored Tech 51-37 in the final 20 minutes of play.

For the third consecutive game, Scott was simply sensational on the offensive end, scoring a game-high 23 points. The performance was Scott’s third straight 20-point game, marking the first time in her six-year career that she’s reached 20 points in three consecutive games.

In four Big 12 games, the guard has now scored 82 points (20.5 points) and is shooting 18-of-22 from the line in conference games.

Tech also received a strong performance from Gerlich, who scored 18 points, grabbed six rebounds and had six assists. Gerlich has now scored 34 points and dished out 11 assists the last two games. The guard was 4-of-7 from 3-point range and a perfect 4-of-4 from the line.

As a team, Tech shot 11-of-20 from distance (55 percent) and an impressive 12-of-13 from the line (92.3 percent).

Oklahoma was led by redshirt senior Ana Llanusa who scored 20 points, while Skyler Vann added 19 points and 11 rebounds off the bench.

Five Sooners ended up in double-figures as Madi Williams and Liz Scott both scored 13 points, while Taylor Robertson managed 10 points, eight of which came in OU’s 27-point fourth quarter.

The difference in the contest was points in the paint and rebounds, as the Lady Raiders were outscored 42-22 in the paint and were out rebounded 47-26. In total, 19 of OU’s 47 rebounds were on the offensive end.

HOW IT HAPPENED:
OU came out of the gates on fire, as the Sooners scored the games’ first eight points and 12 of the first 15 to take a 12-3 lead with 6:54 to play in the opening period.

Tech used five quick points from guard Jasmine Shavers and four from classmate Bailey Maupin to spark a 15-4 run that gave Tech its first lead of the ballgame, 17-17 with 51 seconds to play.

Shavers finished with 12 points and five rebounds while Maupin scored nine points. The duo were a perfect 5-of-5 from the line.

OU quickly answered with an and-one from Liz Scott to go ahead 19-17 with 24 ticks to play in the period. After a missed jumper by Katie Ferrell went out of bounds off of OU with 1.2 seconds to play, the Lady Raiders ran the trademark Kilah Freelon play to tie the score at 19 after one.

The true freshman scored the final two points of the period when she hit a jumper after leaping in the air to grab a lob pass from Gerlich.

After hitting its first two attempts from downtown, the Sooners closed the quarter 0-of-5 from distance.

In the second quarter, the Lady Raiders scored the first three points of the period to lead 22-19 with 9:03 left in the half.

OU quickly answered with the next five points and 10 of the next 17 to lead 29-26 with 6:02 to play in the second.

Tech used five quick points from Gerlich to spark a 10-2 run that gave the home team its second-largest lead of the game at 36-31 with 3:45 left.

OU quickly responded with the next four to draw to within 36-34, but back-to-back triples from Maupin and Scott allowed Tech to score six of the final 10 points, as the Lady Raiders led 42-38 after 20 minutes of play.

The Lady Raiders shot 9-of-14 from the floor in the 23-point second quarter, including 4-of-6 from three point range. Most importantly, Tech limited OU to just 4-of-14 shooting from 3-point range, and 2-of-12 shooting from deep after OU hit its first two.

After OU scored four of the first six points to get to within 44-42 just 38 seconds into the third, Tech used back-to-back threes from Gerlich and Shavers to race out to a 50-44 lead with 7:09 to play.

After holding OU to just six points in the first nearly three minutes of the second half, the Sooners would go on to score 46 over the final 17 minutes of play.

OU began the stretch with another and-one from Scott, that cut the Lady Raider lead to 50-47 with 6:53 to play.

The three-point play sparked 9-0 run that finished on a Vann layup with 4:11 to play in the quarter.

Tech and OU traded buckets on the next two possession, before a Rhyle McKinney three cut the Tech deficit to just 58-55 with 2:23 play.

McKinney’s big shot sparked a 9-4 run that brought the Lady Raiders to within 62-61 at the third quarter buzzer.

In the fourth, Tech used back-to-back triples from Scott ad Gerlich to take a brief 67-66 lead with 8:46 to play.

Needing to regain momentum, OU used a second chance layup from Williams to spark a 18-4 run over the next six minutes and 17 seconds.

Tech scored eight of the next 10 points to draw to within 86-79 with 1:12 to play, but a Robertson triple with 45 seconds to play gave OU the 89-79 win.

In the last nine matchups, the team that won the game has now scored at least 88 points in eight of those. Over those aforementioned eight games, the winning teams have scored 833 points or 92.6 points per game.

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE:
• Scott has now scored 20 points or more four times this season
• The Lady Raiders hit 10+ 3-pointers in a game for the first time since Dec. 1 against Alabama State.
• Tech fell for the first time this season when scoring 70 points. The Lady Raiders were previously 6-0.
• The Lady Raiders saw a 12-game streak of forcing 15 or more turnovers snapped.
• Tech forced just 12 OU turnovers tonight, the fewest turnovers forced this season.
• The Lady Raiders did however do a good job of not turning the ball over, as Tech had just 20 turnovers.
• The two teams combined for 47 assists and just 22 turnovers.
• Tech assisted on 20-of-28 made baskets.
• Entering today averaging 20.2 assists (third-most in the country), OU had 27 helpers Wednesday.
• Tech falls to 0-4 this season when allowing a team to score 30 points in the paint [or more].
• On the flip side, the Lady Raiders are 13-0 when holding teams below 30 points in the paint.
• The Lady Raiders were previously 5-0 when recording at least 15 assists in a game.

COACH SPEAK HC KRISTA GERLICH:
“That was a hard one. I thought our kids played extremely hard and competed really well. We followed the game plan extremely well in the first half. It felt like when we came out of halftime you know we didn’t execute the first several possessions and against OU, you can’t have empty offensive possessions because they’re so good in transition… Every time we step on the floor, if we don’t believe we can win, that’s certainly not going to happen if we don’t believe it. So, they certainly we thought that we should win. They know that they let it slip away at the end. In the Big 12, we’re going to play ranked opponents and we’re going to play teams that are more experienced than us. We’re just not in it right now for moral victories, we’re over that. So, this one hurt because we feel like we let slip away and on our home court especially, but they’ll rise up tomorrow and we’ll get ready to play K State.”

UP NEXT:
The Lady Raiders travel to Manhattan to face Kansas State on Saturday afternoon. Tip-off from K-State is set for 4 p.m.

–TECH–

Release provided by Andrew Stern Texas Tech Athletics