SU women take on GSU
In her time patrolling the post for the Southern women’s basketball team, fifth-year senior Jamie Floyd has scored 860 points, grabbed 479 rebounds and blocked 126 shots.
She has made the all-Southwestern Athletic Conference first team. She has earned two conference championship rings — and possibly if the Jaguars keep it up, a third ring at the end of this season.
Still, there’s at least one very important thing she’s never done: win at Grambling.
She’ll have one more shot at 3 p.m. today in the Hobdy Assembly Center, when the title-contending Jaguars (8-8, 7-2) face the archrival Lady Tigers (8-11, 4-5).
Why is this game so different? After all, the Southern women usually play well anywhere in the SWAC.
“I think it’s the mental pressure that the kids put on themselves,” 12th-year coach Sandy Pugh said. “If they’re playing any other team, they’re thinking about, ‘I need to execute, take care of the basketball and play with toughness.’ Then they win.
“You play Grambling, and it’s just a different thing.”
Southern completed the first half of its conference schedule last Saturday with a hard-earned win against Alcorn, one that left the Jaguars in a first-place tie with Mississippi Valley State.
As Pugh said again this week, they haven’t always played their best — but in their last two games, they’ve had their moments.
Turnovers are still a concern. Southern had 28 of them against Alcorn’s pressure defense.
Offense is still a concern. The Jaguars rank sixth in the SWAC at 58.6 points per game; doctors still have not cleared senior point guard Carneta Henderson (knee); and inconsistency may lead them to start surging freshman Jessica Thomas at small forward, ahead of junior Lechell Rush.
Still, Southern has the look of a young team that might be on the rise.
Grambling, meanwhile, is tied for seventh in the SWAC standings.
So why won’t this game be a laugher?
Well, it’s Grambling. Weird stuff happens there.
When Floyd was a redshirt freshman, the Jaguars fell behind and lost 54-53 when Freda Allen’s late putback fell just short.
In Floyd’s sophomore year, the team came into Grambling on a seven-game winning streak — but the Lady Tigers made a late charge to win by 11 points, 69-58 (Southern finished 14-4 in conference play, that year sweeping the regular-season and tournament championships).
Last season, the Jaguars managed only 18 second-half points at Grambling in a 48-43 loss. They followed that with a 12-game winning streak and a regular-season title (Southern lost in the SWAC tournament).
Long story short: Since fourth-year coach Donnita Rogers began at Grambling, her teams have seemingly saved their best efforts for SU.
Take, for example, the teams’ Jan. 7 meeting in the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
Southern seemed in control, holding a slim lead for much of the game, until the Lady Tigers gained momentum late in the second half. They took the lead with less than a minute left. Then star freshman Kendra Coleman made a stunning four-point play with 37 seconds remaining. The Jaguars pre
vailed, 72-67.
Another knock-down-drag-out game between Southern and Grambling.
What gives?
“The kids have students and alumni telling them about how they need to win, and they always get a nice crowd for us (at Grambling),” Pugh said. “You really don’t get that level of hostility from anywhere else in the conference.”