Jan. 6, 2008
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CINCINNATI - Sophomore All-American candidate Amber Harris and freshman center Ta'Shia Phillips combined to score 35 points to lead the Xavier Univesity women's basketball team to a 65-55 win over No. 7 Georgia on Sunday afternoon at Cintas Center in Cincinnati. Georgia was the highest-ranked team Xavier has ever beaten at home and the win was XU's second of the season over a ranked team.
Xavier, which also defeated No. 24 North Carolina State this season, improves to 7-17 all-time vs. ranked teams. The Musketeers lost their previous game against Kansas and the team now improves to 27-2 following a loss since the 2004-05 season.
Georgia is the highest-ranked team XU has defeated since the Musketeers captured a win over No. 3 Tennessee in the Mideast Regional semifinal of the 2001 NCAA Tournament. XU also improves to 6-1 vs. teams from the SEC since the 2005-06 season.
Harris' 19 came on 8-of-17 shooting and she also snared six rebounds and made both of her attempts from the charity stripe. Ta'Shia Phillips was an automatic 7-of-8 from the floor and she was able to corral four boards in 24-minute of action.
Sophomore forward April Phillips, a transfer from Georgia Tech. who became eligible on December 28, made her presence known with an eight-point, 10-rebound effort against Georgia's rugged frontline. She was 4-of-7 from the floor in 18-minutes of action and the 10 rebounds were a career high.
Junior Tudy Reed, a transfer from Rutgers who also became eligible on December 28, contributed eight points including two big 3-pointers.
Harris sent XU into the locker room with a 29-21 lead when she buried a 3-pointer at the top of the key as the first half expired. Xavier used that momentum to open up a 17-point lead, 43-26, on the strength of a 14-5 run to start the second half.
Ta'Shia Phillips sparked the run with six points and junior guard Jerri Taylor capped the spurt by burying a 3-pointer.
The Musketeers used solid defense and excellent rebounding maintain a double-digit lead for the remainder of the game.
XU shot a solid 52.9 percent (27-of-51) from the floor including a blistering 58.3 percent (14-of-24) effort in the second half. The Musketeer defense was equally as effective, holding the Lady Dogs to a chilly 33.3 percent (16-of-48) from the floor.
Xavier also held a 36-to-26 rebounding advantage, marking only the third time all season UGA had been out-rebounded. The Musketeers took advantage of that edge, out-scoring Georgia by a 36-to-10 count in the paint.
Georgia's All-American Tasha Humphrey led the way with 24 points and six rebounds in 39 minutes of action.
The Musketeers took control in the first half after an 8-2 run sparked by sophomore Amber Harris at the 8:50 mark establishing a 22-16 lead. Georgia narrowed the gap to 24-21 but Harris extended Xavier's lead to eight points scoring five points in the last 52 seconds before intermission.
XU returns to action on Jan. 13 when they start conference play at George Washington. Game time is set at 5:00 p.m.
Tasha Humphrey:
Facing a team of a similar size:
"I think we're just going to have to execute better. I think in the first half we executed pretty well and then we just didn't knock down the shots. I think in the second half we hit some big shots and they hit some big shots more consecutively then we did."
XU success in paint:
"She's 6'6 240. There's not a lot we can do about that. They got her good looks, she got the ball and she finished."
Ashley Houts:
"It always changes the game. Them having big post players on our post players is definitely a challenge and us trying to isolate our post players is not our game plan if you want to call it that. But we had a couple get in foul trouble and they got hot down there towards the end of the game. And I think Tasha did a good job of getting isolated but I think we executed like we planned on it and we just didn't work to get open and when you don't do that you don't score."
Scoring:
"No, they weren't falling. We shot a very poor percentage in the first half. I think when you play a hard game like that and at such a fast pace that not making any field goals or any scoring is definitely hard. You just have to focus on shutting them down every time on the defensive end and we didn't do that every single time. But they got some easy shots and some easy looks and we didn't."
Head Coach Andy Landers:
Xavier's success in the paint:
"From my perspective and there's always more than one perspective but from my perspective they upon breakdowns, anytime we broke down the ball always ended up in the paint except maybe one or two times when there were threes that came at the end of break downs. But you know that's where they want the ball to go. I don't know probably the thing that exaggerates the way we remember that a little bit, is how effective or how accurate that is when it did go in there."
"We just weren't very productive at either wing, just look at the rebounds, look at the turnovers and look at the shooting percentage and you can see that."
Taking things out of this loss:
"You show up and compete. The thing that bothers me tonight with this is that okay we come out Tasha gives us a chance early to get off on the right foot and then no one else really contributes to that and it's instead of that getting you fired up, and I saw them out there playing they miss some shots, turn some balls over and I'm not really doing what I need to be doing. You dig a little deeper. That didn't happen. So what happens next? Now they start pounding on you a little bit, well, forget the first scenario. Now we are at the second scenario, what does a competitor do when someone punches them? They punch back. We didn't punch back. We didn't compete"
Is this surprising:
"Yes it's surprising, it most certainly is. It's sickening is what it is, it's sickening."
XU Shooting:
"They have excellent three-point shooters coming into the game. One shoots at 40 one shoots at 50. It doesn't get any better than that for two wings. Then you have a 60% shooter and a 50% shooter inside, they always shoot it well. Tonight they played to those people."
Amber Harris:
Success in the Paint:
They really weren't double teaming so we just passed it in and went up strong and got good finishes. So we thought it was a great opportunity to just throw it inside.
What this win does:
"This is a good win. It puts our name out there."
Physicality:
"I thought we were pretty physical. We knew that they were going to come in aggressively because they were ranked seventh in the nation but we thought we could just come in and hit them back and just be as strong as them and be aggressive and we could maybe come out with a win and that's what we did."
Ta'Shia Phillips :
Success in the Paint:
"We had been working on the inside out all week and coach told us go in and finish hard and do what we had to do to get the ball in and we had a lot of great passes from the outside and some that were inside to lower post and it was just exactly what we had been working on."
Second Half:
"Just being able to play a little bit more and not have to worry about fouls. Going in and playing a little bit smarter, we did some adjustments at half time."
What this win does:
"It gives us energy on the next couple games coming up. To win a game that big out of conference and then going into conference knowing that we have confidence that makes it a little bit easier to go in and play in the Atlantic 10."
Energy to do well today:
"All the coaches told us not to psyche ourselves out. Come in and play hard with as good of a team as Georgia is it's kind of an energy game, an adrenaline game and we just worked really hard all week for the game which made it easier."
Kevin McGuff:
"This is a great team win for us. Georgia is an excellent team. I've got a lot of respect for Andy Landers and how he administers that program and I'm just really proud of our team to be able to beat Georgia."
Surprise about success in paint:
"Going into the game we knew how good Georgia was, we watched a lot of film. I thought it was a good match up for us. More so defensively than anything else, I didn't think they played people that could match up with their big kids like we could."
"That's really who we are and who we want to become is a team that can really pound the ball inside. Our execution and concentration has been much better tonight then it has been in the past couple games. "
"It gave us a great lift. When we concentrate and really compete on every possession we really have a chance to be a great defensive team and you saw some of that today"
"I hope this win can show our players how good we can be if we've got the right energy and concentration on a daily basis. We've been inconsistent. But we've now got to take this Georgia game and handle success. This means we now practice and work incredibly hard to improve every day."
Difference in tonight and Friday:
"Friday night we didn't concentrate. We had many let downs on defense and today we played much closer to 40 mins. on the defensive end, and if we do that I think we will always have a chance."
Contributions of Tudy Reed and April Phillips:
"Tudy and April bring us a great lift. It is exciting to see them start to develop and our team start to develop some chemistry with them in there."
