Tulane Women’s Basketball season ends in AAC Tournament Quarterfinals vs. UConn

UNCASVILLE, Conn. – The Tulane women’s basketball team outscored No. 1 UConn in the second half, but the damage was done in the first half in a 82-56 loss against the Huskies in the American Athletic Conference Tournament quarterfinals at Mohegan Sun Arena on Sunday night.

The Green Wave finished the second half with 34 points to the Huskies’ 30, but UConn had a 30-point edge in the first half that gave it more than enough cushion to hold on.

With the loss, Tulane’s season comes to an end as do the careers of seniors Caylah Cruickshank and Kolby Morgan. Morgan scored 21 points in the game – her second-most ever in 10 career games against UConn – and Cruickshank had 6. Morgan also led Tulane with three assists and added four rebounds.

Morgan will leave Tulane (14-17) as the team’s second leading scorer all-time with 2,240 points in her career. She is also the leading scorer in AAC history with 1,236 points in regular-season and tournament games combined. Morgan ranks in the top 10 all-time in Tulane history in almost every statistical category and is the team’s all-time leader in games started (130), made field goals (777) and attempted field goals (1816).

Morgan ends her Tulane career with three All-Conference Second Team honors and an All-Conference Third Team Award.

Cruickshank finishes up her Green Wave career with 176 career points, 98 rebounds and 96 games played.

Sunday’s season-ending result was only in doubt for a few minutes.

Tulane hung tough with the Huskies for the first five minutes of the game, trailing just 10-9 on the strength of 3-pointers from Morgan, Tatyana Lofton and Cruickshank. But after that, the Green Wave started turning the ball over and UConn locked down on defense. Nine Tulane turnovers became 12 UConn points, and the Huskies closed the period on a 18-0 run over the quarter’s last five minutes to take a 28-9 lead into the second quarter.

The run would become 21-0 before Tulane made its next basket – a turnaround jumper from Schulte – early in the second quarter. Tulane hit five of its next six jumpers as well, but the UConn offense continued to sink buckets and not let the Green Wave cut into the lead. UConn led 52-22 at halftime

Tulane was narrowly outscored the Huskies 19-18 in the third quarter as Lofton banked in a 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded, and the fourth quarter saw Tulane outscore the nation’s top team 16-11. Tulane shot 40.7 percent from the field in the second while UConn made just 37 percent of its attempts from the field.

Also contributing to Tulane’s second-half surge was holding onto the ball. After Tulane committed 14 turnovers in the first half, the Green Wave had just three more in the second and finished with 17.

Meredith Schulte was Tulane’s other double-figure scorer, reaching 10 points and sinking all four of her free-throw attempts.

Harlyn Wyatt led Tulane with eight rebounds and two steals while scoring 4 points. Tatyana Lofton ended her first year with the team with 8 points and two blocks, both on AAC Defensive Player of the Year Kia Nurse.