With victories against Kent State and Prairie View, UH swept its competition at the David Jones Classic.
The Cougars have swept the Classic in consecutive years and move to 3-4 on the season. Senior forward Te’onna Campbell was named the David Jones Classic Tournament MVP award after scoring in double figures on back-to-back nights.
UH overwhelmed Prairie View 74-46 on Sunday at Hofheinz Pavilion with hot second-half shooting. The Cougars scored a season-high 43 points on 52 percent shooting in the second half.
Campbell had a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds, and junior guard Demetria Foreman dropped in eight points of her own.
After leading by only six points heading into halftime, the Cougars turned up the heat, scoring 43 points in the second half that put the game out of reach.
Their defense buckled down as they forced 18 turnovers, which opened up the transition game.
UH rallies against Kent State
UH trailed by eight points with 12:56 left to play in the game. With the help of a game-high 16-point performance by Campbell, the Cougars were able to rally past Kent State 54-44 on Saturday afternoon at Hofheinz Pavilion in game two of the David Jones Classic.
Campbell’s 16 points were just one shy of her career-high. She was able to hit key free throws (6-9) toward the end of the game to propel the victory. Her front-court teammate sophomore forward Marche’ Amerson had 11 points and collected a game-high three steals in the victory.
The Cougars missed six consecutive goals to open up the second half, falling behind by eight points with just over seven minutes gone by, but the Cougars responded with an 18-5 run over the next eight minutes to take a 44-39 lead with 5:52 left to play.
“We didn’t hesitate as much or second-guess ourselves,” Campbell said. “We got a little confidence throughout the game and were probably too hesitant in the first half. Those first two shots fell, and that gave us our energy to just play ball like our coaches were telling us.”
Part of the Cougars’ success was that they were able to force 12 turnovers — all in the second half.
“Lately, in practice, we’ve been working on keeping people in front of us and containing. I feel that showed up in the game today — we kept people contained and had our hands up. We were the attackers on defense more than offense today, and that’s where our energy came from.”
The Cougars knocked down six free throws in the final two minutes of regulation and connected on a season-best 80 percent (16-of-20) from the free-throw line to ice the game.
“When we go into attack mode and play aggressive offensively and don’t settle, we can get to the line and make some points,” said head coach Todd Buchanan. “It was part of the game plan, and I tell them all the time, I want to punch first, punch second and punch last. I felt in the first half, we didn’t do a lot of that. In the second half, we did.”
