University of Houston
3-0
Oregon State
1-1
Cougar Defense Shines in Win over Oregon State, 49-32
11/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 19, 2009
Final Stats | Quotes | Photo Gallery 
HOUSTON - Behind a strong team defensive team effort that saw it hold an opponent under 40 points for the first time since 2001, the University of Houston women's basketball team earned a win in its home opener Thursday night, defeating Oregon State 49-32 at Hofheinz Pavilion.
"We played really hard and physical," said head coach Joe Curl. "We did that for the most part all 40 minutes. I was a little disappointed the first five minutes of the second half but after that we dug down and found that toughness. It was a really tough, physical ball game. If someone looked at the score they could easily think it wasn't a good game to watch but that's the type of game I could watch every night. It was very defensively oriented and hard-nosed. It was a tough game and they only shot 27 percent from the field; I'll take that any night."
Houston improves to 3-0 on the season and avenges a 60-47 loss to the Beavers in Corvallis, Ore., last season. The 32 points allowed is the lowest for the Cougars since they defeated Prairie View A&M 68-30 on Dec. 5, 2001. Oregon State falls to 1-1 on the year.
Junior forward Courtney Taylor posted her 28th career double-double with 15 points and a career-high 19 rebounds, moving into a tie for third on the all-time Cougar double-double list along with Sonya Watkins (1982-86) and Vickey Finch (1979-83).The junior from Crockett, Texas, narrowly missed etching her name in the Cougar record book, missing the most rebounds in a single game by just one board.
Sophomore point guard Porsche Landry proved to be the quickest player on the court and chipped in with a season-best 15 points on the night.
Points were hard to come by in the early going of the contest, as both teams were guilty of several early turnovers before OSU finally recorded the first points of the game on a lay-up by Brittney Kennedy at the 16:56 mark. Combined, the Cougars and Beavers were 0-for-8 from the floor to start the game
After missing its first six shots of the contest, Houston finally got on the board with a pair of points from a Porsche Landry lay-up with 15:04 to play.
Trailing 6-2, the Cougars got a spark in the form of a 6-0 run to give them their first lead of the night. Landry was the key on the run, using her speed to convert a pair of break-away lay-ups and give UH an 8-6 lead with 11:39 on the clock.
A 13-2 run by Houston gave them their biggest lead of the half at 23-12 with just 33 ticks left on the first half, but a 3-pointer from OSU's Kennedy were the final points of the frame and sent them to the locker room down 23-15.
Turnovers were a major factor for both teams as they combined for 28 turnovers in the period, with 14 committed by each side. Landry led all scorers at the break with 10 points.
Out of the intermission it was the Beavers who took the imitative, scoring the half's first eight points to knot the game at 23-23.
After the initial OSU surge, the Cougars struck back with an 11-0 run of their own to reestablish the edge in the game at 34-23 with 12:43 to play.
The staunch UH defense limited the Beavers to just five points during a near 14-minute stretch, leaving the Cougars ahead by the count of 44-28 with just over four minutes to play and in firm control of the contest.
The Cougars are back on the road this week when they travel to Baton Rouge, La., to battle LSU in a noon match-up from the Maravich Center.
