Tide Women's Basketball Wins at Ole Miss, 81-70
1/27/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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OXFORD, Miss. - The University of Alabama women's basketball team finally got the tide turned after earning an impressive and hard-fought 81-79 victory over Ole Miss on Sunday afternoon.
The win snapped a five-game losing skid for the Tide (11-7, 1-4 SEC) and marked the team's first Southeastern Conference win of the year. The Lady Rebels (11-6, 1-5) have now dropped five in a row in league play after opening the season with a win.
"It is just nice to finally get a win in the league," said UA head coach Rick Moody. "As a team, I felt like we needed to get some easy baskets in transition and that's exactly what we did. I thought we played more aggressively today. It was also nice to finally shoot some free throws."
The Tide, who had been doubled up in free throw attempts in SEC play this year, got to the line 40 times against the Lady Rebels scoring 31 points from the line.
Alabama's outside shooting sparked an early run by the Tide putting them in front 14-6. Beth Vice and Katie Sipe both hit a pair of treys in the opening spurt. Ole Miss pulled to within a basket (16-14) with 9:08 left in the half, but Bama outscored the Lady Rebels 10-2 over the next three minutes to take a double-digit lead.
The Tide kept things rolling on offense eventually extending their margin to 14 points, 31-17, following a pair of free throws by Vice at the 4:56 mark. Ole Miss refused to go away closing the half with on a 16-7 run to trim the UA advantage to just five points, 38-33, at the break.
Bama drained eight treys in the opening stanza hitting at a 61.5 percent pace (8 of 13) from beyond the arc. Ole Miss point guard Carletta Brown was the biggest key to keeping the Lady Rebels in the game with her 12 first half points including two of UM's four three-pointers.
UA continued their solid play to start the second half pushing their lead back to double-digits midway through the period. Vice completed an old-fashioned three-point play at the 12:35 mark giving Bama a 54-43 lead.
The Tide led by as many as 13, but Ole Miss again battled back with a 10-0 run to close the gap to just three points with eight minutes remaining. Vice knocked in her fifth trey of the day to end a four minute Bama scoring drive and halt the UM run.
Both offenses began to cool off late in the second half but the Tide was able to open up another multi-possession edge thanks to solid free throw shooting. Neither team scored a basket from the floor from 6:22 to the 0:51 mark. UA's final 22 points came from the charity stripe as the Tide did not score from the field over the final 7:53 of the game.
Vice led all scorers with her first career 30 point game of her career hitting five treys and going 13 of 16 from the free throw line. Sipe scored 11 points in the win while Natasha Gamble and Manish Redus both chipped in 10 for the Tide. Redus led Bama with seven rebounds and six assists. Alabama finished the game 10-20 from the three-point line and 31 of 40 at the free throw line.
Brown led the Lady Rebels with 23 points followed by 18 from Genice Terry. UM also made 10 treys for the game and were 18 of 29 from the line.
The Crimson Tide continues their swing through the "Magnolia State" on Thursday when Alabama visits No. 14 Mississippi State at 7 p.m. Bama's next home game is Sunday, Feb. 2, at 2 p.m. versus No. 8 Arkansas.
Alabama (11-7, 1-4) 38-43-81
Ole Miss (11-6, 1-5) 33-37-70
