By T. Scott Boatright
There was more hoops magic in store for Grambling State University Thursday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the Lady Tigers held on to defeat Oral Roberts 93-91 in first-round action of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament at the Mabee Center.
That win came 24 hours after GSU’s men’s basketball team won a First Four matchup to advance to face Mid-East Region top seed Purdue in a NCAA March Madness Tournament showdown at 6:25 p.m. today in a game that will be televised live on TBS.
Next up for the Lady Tigers is a WNIT second round contest at the University of Louisiana-Monroe at 6:30 p.m. on Monday.
The Lady Tigers found themselves on the wrong side of the scoreboard early on as Oral Roberts built the largest lead of the contest on a Hanah Cooper layup that gave the Golden Eagles a 12-point advantage at 42-30 with 6:20 remaining in the first half.
Grambling batted back, cutting Oral Roberts’ advantage to two points at 43-41 on a Kahia Warmsley driving layup with 2:06 left before intermission.
But Oral Roberts countered to score the final four points of the first half on a pair of made free throws by Taleyah Jones and a Emily Robinson layup to take a 47-41 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Grambling came out strong to start the third quarter, outscoring Oral Roberts 10-3 in the opening 3:35 of the stanza on baskets by five different players —- Anijah Grant, Amanda Blake, Jazmyne Jackson, Zayla Tinner and Douthsine Prien to move out on top for the first time since the 3:03 mark of the first quarter.
Neither team built more than a two-point advantage the remainder of the quarter as the contest moved into the final stanza knotted up at 67-67.
There were seven ties and 11 lead changes in the final stanza, a Grambling four-point advantage being the largest of the stanza.
A Jackson 3-pointer and a pair of made free throws by Warmsley to put Grambling up 93-89 with three seconds lead.
Ruthie Udoumohl added a basket at the buzzer to cut Grambling’s winning margin to two points
The win marked Grambling’s first national tourney win since the Lady Tigers topped Oe Miss 78-75 in the 2017 WNIT.
Jackson led the Lady Tigers in scoring with 21 points while Jordyn Carter added 17.
Grambling won the battle on the boards 43-37 and also got a double-double from Blake, who totaled 14 points and 13 rebounds while the Lady Tigers also got 12 points from Prien, 11 from Warmsley and eight from Grant.
ORU was led by Jones and Udoumah with 22 points each with Udoumah also chalking up a double-double by adding 13 boards.
