The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

WHILE the country hosted several elite NCAA Division I basketball programmes in the capital and Bimini, several Bahamian players were competing in early season tournaments across the United States.

Lashann Higgs and her No.10 Texas Longhorns won the Gulf Coast Showcase while Jaron Cornish and the Stony Brook Sea Wolves are off to their best start in seven years to highlight play in various conferences over the weekend.

The Longhorns won the early season tournament title, but suffered a major loss when Higgs went down with a knee injury in a hard fought 56-55 win over Quinnipiac.

No details about the severity of the injury have been released by the Longhorns and no timetable has been set for her return.

Higgs went down late in the first half before being carried off the court by members of the Longhorns staff.

The Longhorns didn’t get a warmup for the second half and didn’t return to the floor until about 30 seconds were left in the 15-minute intermission. “We were a little shell-shocked,” head coach Karen Aston said. Texas went on to defeat Michigan in the semifinals and Fordham in the finals to improve to 6-0.

Through three games, Higgs was averaging 16.3 points, five rebounds and 4.3 assists per game on 56 percent shooting from the field.

Cornish and the Sea Wolves got their third consecutive win with a 68-58 win over Rhode Island. The senior guard finished with eight points and three assists as they improved their record to 5-1 on the season.

Stony Brook used a 16-3 run in the latter portions of the first half to take a 32-21 lead and would not relinquish the advantage the rest of the way, only letting it get as close as three in the early portions of the second half.

Head coach Jeff Boals said: “We knew what we had to do to win a game on the road. Our guys showed a lot of toughness, came in here and had a great game. We wanted to win the ‘first two wars’ in the first eight minutes of the game. We knew their pressure was going to be some of the best we’ll see and our guys handled it really well. Same thing in the second half. We had to come out and get to a good start, which we did. Give our guys a lot of credit. We made plays on both ends of the floor and had a lot of guys step up and contribute.”

Head Coach Yolett-McPhee McCuin and her Ole Miss Rebels fell to 3-4 on the season after the Paradise Jam, hosted in the US Virgin Islands.

The Rebels lost 64-59 to the St. John’s Red Storm in their tournament finale.

Despite the fact that they overcame a slow start where they trailed 30-18 at the half and erased a 19 point deficit, the Rebels fell short for their third consecutive loss.

They trailed 48-29 with 3:22 to play in the third quarter, but the Rebels responded with a 20-3 run across over the third and fourth quarter to trim the deficit and make the score, 51-49 with 4:16 to play.

Travis Munnings and the ULM-Monroe Warhawks suffered a 79-73 loss to Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles despite the second best scoring output this season from their senior leader.

Munnings score 22 points and shot 3-4 from beyond the arch in the loss.

Radshad Davis and the entire Texas-Arlington Mavericks had a foul plagued night in a 78-60 loss to Arkansas. The Mavericks were called for 34 fouls – tied for the 12th-most in single-game program history. Arkansas shot 34-46 from the line while the Mavericks were just 18-27.

Davis’ only basket of the game, a reverse layup, eventually trimmed the deficit, 56-49, with just over seven minutes remaining.

UT-Arlington fell to .500 at 3-3. It was a season low in points, field goal percentage and free throw percentage with a season high 19 turnovers.

“I thought the difference in the game came at the free-throw line. We fouled them too much and put them at the line, especially in the 1st half, where we had four guys with three fouls. And that was the difference in the game; they made a lot more free throws than we even attempted,” head coach Chris Ogden said, “But we’ll regroup. I like our guys. I believe in them. We just have to learn to get better without fouling.

Charles Bain rebounded from a scoreless outing against Stetson and finished with seven points and a team high six rebounds in an 84-46 loss to the No. 24/19 Purdue Boilermakers. The Colonials are now 3-3 on the season.