Very rarely is UL women’s coach Garry Brodhead overly pleased with his team’s effort on defense.
And for most of Tuesday’s 77-72 season-opening win over Xavier of New Orleans in the Cajundome, he had reason to daydream about future defensive drills in upcoming practice sessions.
The visiting Gold Nuggets made 11 3-pointers and collected four double-figure scorers.
But there was a stretch of about two minutes down the stretch when UL’s defensive intensity reached the highest level of the game just in time to hold off Xavier’s charge.
Only leading 70-68 with 4:19 left, Imani Daniel’s hustle forced a jump ball to eliminate an Xavier possession. Then Amijah Price’s defensive pressure forced Shania Swan into another turnover.
The one more turnover was all the Cajuns needed to secure the five-point win.
“Our point guard let us know, she had got us in the huddle, talked about some stuff, and we just locked in,” Daniel revealed. “At that point, we knew that it was going to be a dogfight and whoever wanted it more was going to win.”
Along the same line, UL’s free throw shooting was poor for most of the night, but Malaya Jones made five at the line in the final 1:34 to help secure the victory.
Jones finished the game with 16 points, along with two rebounds, one steal and one assist.
“I’ve always been told point guard always has to finish the game, be able to make free throws at the end of the game,” Jones said. “So I’ve just I think I’ve been used to doing that, so I just kind of did it for my team today.”
UL’s only other double-figure scorer was true freshman Bailey Timmons with 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting with a pair of 3-pointers.
The other aspect that kept UL afloat through some rough stretches was almost matching Xavier’s 11 bombs with 10 3-pointers. Jones led that effort with three.
“Every single day we get in the gym for practice, even outside of practice, I try to get some shots up, just getting more reps up inside the Cajundome,” Jones said. “It definitely helps, so they get showed today.
“I think I’m always looking to score, like, I’m just always looking to what the defense has given me, so if I have the opportunity to do a square, I’ll go do that, but if we’re going, and I take that opportunity over and over again, and it’s not working, I can slow it down, facilitate.”
After two big rebounding games in the exhibition games, UL actually got outrebounded 40-38 by Xavier. Part of that is 6-foot-3 center Ndioba Lo suffered a knee injury in the first exhibition game and is out for the season.
Then 6-2 freshman Kayllis Walker suffered a knee injury herself in the first half Tuesday and walked off the court in crutches after scoring four points and getting two rebounds in two minutes of play.
The severity of Walker’s injury was unclear during the postgame press conference.
While no other Cajuns managed double figures, there were other significant contributions. Before finishing the game riding the bike after visiting the trainers’ table with an apparent back injury, Arionna Patterson scored 9 points on 3-of-4 shooting with four rebounds and four assists in 17 minutes.
Also, true freshman guard Kelis Dansby enjoyed her best performance with eight points, two assist and a steal in only 12 minutes.
“It’s just a matter of getting in the gym and working on her game,” Brodhead said of Dansby. “You start building confidence when you have an opportunity to play. She had an opportunity to play. Hopefully, she built a little confidence. That’s going to help her to get in the gym, to get better.”
The other aspect the Cajuns will need to work on in practice is 3-point defense. After giving up 10 of them in the second to Mississippi Christan in the second exhibition game, Xavier had 11 in this opener.
“We identified 3, 5 and 10,” Brodhead insisted. “We identified 3, 5 and 10 … 3, 5, and 10.”
Shania Swan is 3 and she scored 20 points with four 3s. Jakayla Gilmer is 5 and she scored 15 behind a trio of 3s. Jade Francis is 10 and she hit a pair of 3s.
“It’s not really the coaches,” Daniel interjected. ” We had a bad job communicating on the court. It has nothing to do with them. We just got to execute better. No, we knew who they were.”
Brodhead pointed to learning through experience.
“No, it is kind of on the coaches in a way,” he explained. “We’re telling a 17 years old, coming out of high school, that you got to shade over, and she’s, like, thinking, ‘Well, I can get to it by the time she catches the ball.’ But when you shade over, you have a tendency to make the ball go the opposite way … You’re denying a little bit.”
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