Women take on No. 5 Texas Sunday afternoon
12/26/2015 7:18:00 AM | Women's Basketball
In their final non-conference game of the 2015-16 season, the Sam Houston women's basketball travels to Austin to take on No. 5 ranked Texas Sunday afternoon.
Tipoff is at 2 p.m. at the Frank Erwin Center. The game will be televised nationally by the Longhorn Network.
The Longhorns (10-0) are one of only nine NCAA Division I women's basketball programs with undefeated records. Texas is looking to go 11-0 to start the season for the second consecutive year and for just the fifth time in program history.
Should the Longhorns win on Sunday, it would mark the first back-to-back 11-0 starts in school history. Texas has currently won 23 consecutive games against regular-season non-conference opponents dating back to the 2013-14 campaign.
Sam Houston (4-5) has won two of its last four games. Both victories came on the road as the Bearkats defeated LIU-Brooklyn 63-56 in New York on November 29 and Texas Southern in Houston 53-51. The Rice Owls handed the Kats a 58-46 loss in Huntsville on December 17. In their last outing, the Sam women fell to Kansas State 78-50 in Manhattan.
Two seniors, guard Shernise Robertson and center Angela Beadle, led the Bearkats. Robertson is averaging 16.2 points and 3.7 assists per contests. Beadle owns a 12.2 scoring average and leads the team with 8.3 rebounds per game.
Newcomers Laurynn McGowen and Kamry Orr add 8.1 and 5.7 points per game, respectively.
Sophomore guard Brooke McCarty leads the Longhorns in scoring, averaging 12.6 points per game. Senior center Imani Boyette follows with 12.4 points per game and leads the team in rebounding with 8.8 boards per game. She currently ranks fifth in the Big 12 Conference in rebounds per game. Junior guard Brianna Taylor adds 9.8 points per game and is second on the team with 5.0 rebounds per game.
Texas and Sam Houston State are meeting for the ninth time in the history of the two programs with the Longhorns leading the all-time series 8-0. The two teams last met on December 15, 2013, with Texas winning 109-48.
Sam Houston State assistant coach Stacy Stephens is a Texas Ex who played for the Longhorns from 2000-04 and served as a special assistant for the Horns from 2012-14. She is one of only four players in UT school history to collect 1,000-plus points and 1,000-plus rebounds.
Following the contest with the Longhorns, Sam Houston will have a week to prepare for the opening of the Southland Conference schedule. The Bearkats play their first two league games on the road, traveling to San Antonio to face Incarnate Word at 2 p.m. on Saturday, January 2 then facing Northwestern State in Natchitoches, La., on Tuesday, January 4.
The Sam Houston women's first home Southland Conference game is Thursday, January 7, when the Kats play host to Southeastern Louisiana.
