Women’s Basketball Falls to Defending Champion Abilene Christian in Southland Opener

ABILENE, Texas - The New Orleans women's basketball team was able to get as close as three points halfway through the third quarter but returning Southland Conference champion Abilene Christian was able to hold on as the Wildcats won a 76-62 decision in both team's conference opener at the Moody Coliseum on Wednesday.

THE BASICS
FINAL SCORE: New Orleans - 62, Abiliene Chrisitan 76
LOCATION: Moody Coliseum - Abilene, Texas
RECORDS: New Orleans (3-6/0-1), Abilene Christian (8-1/1-0)

HOW IT HAPPENED
- Rehema Franklin set a new career-high with 25 points on 9-of-18 shooting to go with four rebounds, four steals, one assist and a block. It was her sixth double-digit output of the season and the second straight game she has gone over 23 points.
- Whitley Larry and Asia Woods each chipped in eight points. Woods led the Privateers with five boards while Larry was tops in blocks with two.
- Dionjhae Thomas, who made her first start of the season, led the team for the fourth consecutive game in assists with three and added two points, two steals and two rebounds.
- Kyla Malone was a force off the bench as she contributed seven points, three boards and an assist in just 20 minutes of action.
- Abilene Christian was able to jump out to a 21-12 lead after the first quarter of play. It is an advantage they would not let up over the remainder of the contest.
- The Privateers fought back with an even second quarter, but the Wildcats still were up 35-25 going into the half.
- The third quarter was almost the turning point for New Orleans as they went on an 11-5 run over a three-minute span to cut the Albiliene advantage to 42-39 with 5:45 left in the period.
- The Wildcats answered with a 15-6 spurt of their own to push the lead to 57-45 after three.
- New Orleans and Abilene played an even fourth quarter which lead to a 76-62 victory for the home team.

FOR THE FOES
- Breanna Wright led the way with a team-high 17 points, five assists and four steals.
- The Wildcats had four double-digit scorers in total as Lexie Ducat and Alyssa Adams each finished with 12 while Madi Miller chipped in 11, respectively.
- Ducat recorded a double-double as she pulled down 10 boards to go with her double-digit point total. 

NOTEWORTHY
- Larry moved into a tie for ninth-place in Privateer history in total blocks as she now has 98 for her career after her two in this evening's contest. One more will move her into sole possession of ninth-place.

COACHES CORNER
- "Against a team like Abiliene Christian who is a very good team, they're the returning champions for a reason, we have to value the ball. Twenty-five turnovers in a game like this, we will not win the basketball game. I feel like the turnovers in the very first period, when we had eight of them, were not forced turnovers. They were unforced turnovers that they capitalized on. We gave up 21 offensive rebounds for 23 second chance points and all of that matters. All of that comes down to a possession game. Possessions that we lost with the turnovers and possessions that we gave away with them getting second chance points. Everybody in the nation knows that the best time to shoot a three-pointer is off an offensive rebound and that's a great three-point shooting team. It's not that we didn't know what they were doing, we didn't do a great job of taking care of the ball and adjusting fast enough."
- "Twenty one to 12 in that first quarter is what really put the separation in the game. This team fights. We're amazingly persistent but we can't dig a hole and expect to come out in this atmosphere. We have to fight in the beginning, maintain all the way through and finish strong."
- "We're doing a great job of forcing teams to commit 20-plus turnovers but it's then giving the ball back with 20-plus turnovers of our own. Abilene Christian may not have a 22 turnover game again. I'm just saying, they don't turn the ball over like that. We no doubt did a great job of getting them to turn over the ball. We shot a better percentage. This great free throwing shooting team in ACU shot 64 percent. There are great positives to take away from this game. There's a lot that we did well. Just those areas or moments of lapses where we forgot to box out or left somebody wide open, they capitalized on them and I do believe that was the difference in the game."