Box Score
TYLER, Texas --  The No. 23-ranked Lady Wildcats escaped with a 79-70 American Southwest Conference victory over Texas-Tyler at the Herrington Patriot Center, but that was the only good thing the Louisiana College women were willing to say about their performance Thursday.

"That was the worst game we have played all year," junior Natosha Gottlieb said. "We did not play Lady Wildcat basketball. This team has a lot of potential and high expectations. We did not meet those expectations tonight."

It was the ninth straight victory for LC, which improved to 15-2 overall and 12-1 in ASC play.

"At the end of the day, it was a win," LC coach Jason Tinsley said. "I know that, but it has to be better.

"We're trying to win the (ASC) East and host the (ASC) tournament. We have to be better than we were tonight to do that."

LC's full-court press was largely ineffective all night. The Lady Cats came into the game forcing an average of 34 turnovers a game. Texas-Tyler committed just 20 turnovers, the fewest LC has forced all season.

"I never thought I would say this about my team this year, but Tyler played harder than we did and competed harder than we did," Tinsley said. "I'm not mad. I'm frustrated. This is very frustrating.

"We have high expectations here. We are not going to be satisfied with a win. We have to keep getting better if we want to win championships."

That message was driven home in Tinsley's talk to the players in the locker room after the game.

"He wasn't happy, and he shouldn't have been happy," Gottlieb said. "We have to get this fixed, and I think we will get this fixed."

LC had two good stretches that allowed the Lady Cats to get past Tyler. LC finished the first half by going on a 19-4 run over the last five minutes to lead 39-23 at the break.

But Tyler clawed back into the game in the second half, handing LC's trapping press defense with ease.

"We didn't get anything done in the second half," Tinsley said. "We didn't guard them."

Tyler committed just eight turnovers in the second half.

"We score a lot of points," Gottlieb said, "but we score them because we get a lot of baskets out of our trap. We didn't do that tonight."

Tyler got as close to three points in the second half before LC did just enough to hold off the Patriots.

"Thank goodness Danisha (Allison) and Mel (Melody Criswell) hit some key free throws down the stretch," Tinsley said.

Gottlieb scored 20 points to lead the Lady Cats, followed by Criswell and Allison with 10 points each.

Shamiya Domino had 16 points and 21 rebounds to lead Tyler. Lindsey Hausmann had 15 points, followed by Olivia Burns with 11 and She'Cara Humphrey with 10.

"I hope tonight was just a case of freshman-itis," Tinsley said. "I am not saying it was the freshmen's fault. But when you have so many freshmen (10), there are going to be some games where they play like freshmen. That can have a domino effect. I hope that's all it was tonight."

Gottlieb said it was the job of LC's five veteran players to prevent any domino effect.

"It's up to us to set the tone," she said. "I don't think we did that tonight."