The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

LASHANN Higgs was back on the court in her first official game as a Texas Longhorn in almost a year, and picked up where she left off as one of the team’s leaders as a fifth year senior.

Higgs finished with 16 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals in Texas’ 83-73 exhibition win over Lubbock Christian Monday at the Frank Erwin in Austin, Texas.

Texas scored the game’s first 10 points, held a 15-2 lead during the first quarter, and was prevailing by 13 points at halftime before Lubbock Christian went on a run at the beginning of the fourth quarter that trimmed the UT lead to four. But six consecutive Longhorn defensive stops, combined with an 11-0 scoring run, rallied the Longhorns to victory. Texas led 46-34 at halftime. Higgs scored 10 of her 16 at the half.

The Big 12 approved a hardship waiver for Higgs in the offseason, which made the guard eligible to return to the Longhorns for the 2019-20 season.

In November 2018, Higgs was diagnosed with a season-ending torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her left knee. Recovery time for the injury is traditionally 9-12 months.

She told KTXS ABC affiliate that her return to the court has been long awaited.

“I’ve been waiting all year for this. It means so much to me and I’m just really grateful to be able to do this again. When a person gets hurt, it’s kind of like your body shuts off, and your mind kind of shuts off as well. So it’s more of getting back into things and rebuilding that chemistry with my teammates,” she said. “Just put it all out there. Because you don’t really expect to get hurt. You never know when it’ll be your last.”

Longhorns head coach Karen Aston also said Higgs’ comeback should propel Texas in their quest to return to the national conversation.

“I think more than anything, Lashann leads by example in how much passion she plays the game with,” she said. “She’s what most of us would call a gym rat. She spent the adequate time that it takes to make sure her skill level stayed the same.”

The Longhorns begin the regular season against USF in Tampa on Friday, November 8.

Aston said the team’s lone exhibition was important to get returnees like Higgs and the newcomers acclimated.

“I thought it was good to get our team under the lights. You always think you see certain things in practice, or you need to see combinations, and sometimes those situations don’t happen until you get into the game situations and again get under the lights,” she posted to the UT Athletics website. “We’ll grow from this and every day we step on the floor we’re going to get better just because of game experience and players playing that didn’t get a lot of minutes last year.”

Higgs has appeared in 107 career games for the Longhorns and has scored 1,019 career points. She played in just four games of her senior season before suffering the season-ending injury. Though sidelined, Higgs received her third selection to the Academic All-Big 12 Teams. She was one of just eight student-athletes in the conference this year to have at least three selections.

First team members consisted of those who have maintained a 3.20 or better GPA. To qualify, student-athletes must maintain a 3.00 GPA or higher either cumulative or the two previous semesters and must have participated in 20 per cent of their team’s scheduled contests.

Through three games, Higgs was averaging 16.3 points, five rebounds and 4.3 assists per game on 56 per cent shooting from the field. Despite her limited time on the floor this season, she became the 44th player in Texas history to reach the 1,000 point plateau when she scored 20 points in a 64-54 win over North Texas.

Higgs entered her senior season projected to be one of the top players in the Big 12 conference and was named to the 10-member Preseason All-Big 12 Team.She came off a junior season where she claimed All-Big 12 Second Team, Big 12 All-Defensive Team, USWBA National Player of the Week and Big 12 Player of the Week.

As a junior, she started 35 games and averaged 12.8 points per game, which ranked third on the team, 3.3 rebounds per game and was third on the squad with 1.4 steals per game. She scored in double figures on 21 occasions, including four 20-plus point performances.

In her sophomore season, Higgs - the Harbour Island native - averaged eight points, three rebounds, 1.5 assists and one steal in just over 17 minutes per game. She built upon the numbers from her freshman season when she averaged 7.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game in 13.2 minutes.