Women’s basketball records second loss

The University of Memphis women’s basketball team dropped a game to East Tennessee State University on the road Friday.

The Tigers (3-3) came out strong with the early 9-2 lead, but the ETSU Buccaneers (1-2) silenced the Tigers with a 23-point run. The Tigers went nearly 10 minutes without a bucket.

“I thought ETSU played with a tremendous amount of energy,” head coach Melissa McFerrin said in a postgame interview. “They are very good on the offensive glass, and we knew that, but we didn’t check them out and we kind of got forced on the backside boards. There wasn’t much complexity to what they did. They just outworked us in certain situations.”
With less than two minutes remaining in the half, senior Nicole Dickson shot a three for the Tigers to trim the score to within nine, but Shawn Randall countered with a three-point buzzer-beater to send ETSU into the locker room with the 40-28 lead.

ETSU stepped out after the half and picked up where they left off, draining three three-pointers in the first eight minutes of play to expand their lead to 16.

The Tigers outscored the Bucs 45-43 in the second half and once again trimmed the lead to within nine, but they were unable to surmount their first-half blunders. ETSU successfully defended their home court with the 83-73 win.

Dickson, an East Tennessee native, was one of two Tigers to score in double digits. Dickson had 30 points on the day and junior Pa’Sonna Hope recorded a double-double with 12 rebounds and 13 points for Memphis.

The game marked the third time in four games Dickson reached the 30-point plateau.

“It doesn’t really matter what one person does, it matters what the team does,” Dickson said.

The Tigers will kick off three-straight at the Elma Roane Fieldhouse starting Friday against the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.