COMMERCE– The Texas A&M University-Commerce women's basketball team play the final game of its five-game road trip against Tarleton State on Tuesday.
 
Tarleton State
WHO: Texas A&M-Commerce (16-8, 12-4 LSC) vs. Tarleton State (16-8, 10-6 LSC)
WHERE: Wisdom Gym in Stephenville, Texas
WHEN: Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 5:30 p.m.
LIVE STATS: Click HERE
LIVE VIDEO: tarletonsports.com/showcase?Live=1003
LIVE AUDIO: ketr.org
 
The Lions are coming off of a split in their last week of competition. A&M-Commerce struggled to shoot against Angelo State and lost by 11 points. The team then rebounded with a three-point victory against A&M-Kingsville that had the Lions mount a second half comeback to defeat the Javelinas. Head coach Jason Burton liked the way his team learned from their early week mistakes to bounce back in a tough gym on the road.
 
"I thought we did a good job against Kingsville of finding a way to come back and win," he said. "We knew we were up for a challenge last week with our third and fourth road games in a row. We have had some long road trips and then this trip we were without Artaejah Gay. We knew we were going to have to have some people step up and we knew it was going to be a challenge.
 
Burton liked the way his team played defensively against Angelo State but the shots just would not fall for his team.
 
"Angelo has been playing really well," he said. "I thought defensively we came out and did a good job against them. We held them to 25 points in the first half and for them to only score 66, I thought that put us in a position to win. We struggled to score the ball. We only had 19 points in the first half and finished with 55. We struggled to score the ball."
 
The Lions used their long bus ride from San Angelo to Kingsville to focus on film and the team was able to make some adjustments and find some things to improve on and found a way to score more in their next contest.
 
"We adjusted some things and scored 81 against Kingsville," Burton said. "That is a tough place to win, especially going into halftime down nine. I was really proud of the way we fought in the second half. I thought our team did a really good job of not turning the ball over in the second half. We created second-chance shots and we crashed the offensive glass. We had some people step up and make some shots. Jocelyn Pierce, Lauren Parker and Jenna Price all had big games for us. Without Tae, we had to have some people step up and they did a really good job."
 
Burton was especially impressed by the play of redshirt junior Princess Davis. Normally the facilitator in the offense, Davis has recently taken on a bigger scoring load. She averaged 25.5 points last week and shot better than 73 percent from three-point range, something Burton said she has been focusing on.
 
"Princess Davis has taken her game to a whole different level," he said. "The way Princess has been shooting the three with five threes against Cameron, three against Angelo and to go 5-of-6 against Kingsville, that is somebody who hasn't shot the ball historically well in her career. She has put in some work improving her shot. It is starting to show now. With her playing well as she has, it will be great to hopefully add Artaejah Gay back this week and go on the road tomorrow and try and get this last one."
 
Burton liked the way his players played in their last game and he hopes the team can build off of the performance against a good Tarleton State team. He knows if the team can continue its play from their game in Kingsville, they will have a good shot to win again.
 
"We are going to try and build off of what we did against Kingsville," he said. "We watched a lot of film on Friday and had a chance to look at ourselves against Angelo and look at some of our mistakes. I think we are starting to improve on that as a team. Right now we have been getting a lot of scoring from Princess, Tae and Brianna Wise and as people start to step up and score the ball for us, I think that puts us in position to have success. People are going to have to step up and this weekend we got some confidence for our team. That is going to be huge for us moving forward.
 
Burton knows it will be a tough game against the TexAnns. The teams have played nine times in his four years as head coach and every one of them has been a battle. The Lions defeated TSU by six in January in a back-and-forth affair and Burton expects a similar battle on Tuesday.
 
"They play really well at home and have been playing really well lately," he said. "They have a special team over there. Misty does a great job over there as a coach. They have some really good players over there and we are going to have to guard the three and guard their high-low. You have to play really good team defense to beat them. We have done it before."
 
The game is a rivalry game according to Burton. After meeting the TexAnns so many times, especially in the post season, the game will have some extra juice to it.
 
"They have always been a challenge for us," Burton said of Tarleton. "We swept them in the regular season last year and then they turned around and beat us in the conference tournament. It is kind of a rivalry game between us. It seems like we have played Tarleton more than we have played any other team since I've been here. It is always a challenge. I think our team realizes how important this game is for us and how important these last four games are. We are still in the mix to win a conference championship. We are going to come in there and give it everything we have."
 
With a win, it would move Burton into second place in program history in Lone Star Conference wins. Burton is proud of the achievement because it shows the team is headed in the right direction and has had some great players in his four years as coach.
 
"It is a very tough conference to play in and battle in," he said. "We have had girls here like Artaejah Gay and Princess Davis who has been here for four years and have really put in work to turn this culture around. I'm proud of the buy-in that we have had from the players. It means we have had coaches who have come in and put in a lot of work. Our coaches do a really good job of preparing and putting in work for scouts to make sure our team has the best chance for success because of the game plan. I am proud of the people who have come through this program the last four years and I am excited to continue to see this program go in the right way."