The SMU women’s basketball team fell to Tulane University on Saturday night in a 71-68 road loss to wrap up the Mustangs’ regular season.
SMU finished with the most wins in a single season in school history. The team ended its season with a 21-8 overall record, while going 11-5 in conference.
Five wins behind No. 1 UTEP, the Mustangs have been granted a first-week bye in the Conference USA Tournament as the No. 2 seed. Prior to the team’s final two games, SMU was riding a seven-game winning streak that ended Thursday night in a 76-63 loss to No. 1, University of Texas at El Paso.
SMU won the last meeting against Tulane in an 81-69 victory at Moody Coliseum on Feb. 2, but still fell behind Tulane with the Green Wave now holding a 12-7 win advantage in the series.
The Green Wave improved to 16-13 and 6-10 in C-USA, sending them to Orlando as the No. 10 team in the tournament. The win marked the Green Wave’s 15th consecutive win in the final regular season home game.
Senior Janielle Dodds surpassed Karlin Kennedy for most career points and rebounds at SMU, posting a team-high 17 points and nine rebounds to put her name on top for the two highest-profile records in school history.
Dodds now has 1,800 career points for the Mustangs and 952 rebounds in the four years she’s been on the court. Kennedy had 1,785 career points and 946 rebounds when she played at SMU.
As Saturday’s game got underway, Tulane held a 16-13 lead with 9:54 left in the first half, but as SMU closed in on the Green Wave, the Mustangs slowly began to take the final lead of the half.
Nikki Luckhurst hit a three pointer within the final seconds of the first half to pull within three points of SMU, but a last-shot bucket by the Mustangs gave them the lead.
The Mustangs led through the first half with a 32-27 advantage but could not manage to fend off Tulane’s leading scorer, Luckhurst, for the last 20 minutes of play. Luckhurst went 6-12 in threes, giving her a game-high 24 points.
In the first half, SMU shot only 36.4 percent from the field and 25 percent from behind the arc, but was saved by a 75 percent success rate from the line. The Green Wave struggled, shooting 32.1 percent in field goals, but hit 41.7 percent of their threes and 4-8 in free throws.
Nailing a pair of threes to open the second half, Luckhurst sparked a 10-2 point run for the Green Wave, giving them a 37-34 lead right out of the gate. SMU fought back with a brief four-point lead, but Tulane tied the game at 50-50 with 10:19 remaining before Dodds and senior Sharee Shepherd hit back-to-back buckets to give SMU another lead.
Another run by Tulane put them up 62-61 with just under four minutes left to give them the final lead of the game. Alendra Brown led in the final minutes with five successful free throws to improve her team to 67-65. A steal from SMU, followed by a bucket and two more free throws gave Tulane the 71 points the team needed for a win.
Sophomore Jillian Samuels tried to salvage the game with a hopeful three pointer at the buzzer, but it was too late for SMU.
The Mustangs closed out the game with 25 points from the bench and managed 24 points from the paint, but struggled in threes. Shooting only 27.3 percent in threes, the Mustangs made less than 50 percent of their field goals throughout the game, but shot 76.5 percent from the line.
SMU also struggled in rebounds, giving up 42 rebounds to the Green Wave, while pulling down 39 for itself.
The Mustangs will travel to Orlando, Fla., to compete in the conference tournament over a four-day period. The Mustangs will take on the winner of the Memphis vs. Tulsa game in the second round of the tournament on Friday.
