The New Orleans Privateers women’s basketball team is set to travel to south Texas for two games following the Christmas break. The team will face UTRGV on Monday at 4 p.m., followed by a matchup against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday at 1 p.m.
In their most recent outing, the Privateers lost 79-68 to UIW on December 18. They trailed by 11 points after the first quarter and were unable to recover, with both teams playing evenly for the remainder of the game. Shanihya Brown led New Orleans with 19 points and nine rebounds, while Sephora Kayolo contributed 13 points.
The team’s free throw shooting has shown improvement in recent games. After making less than 70 percent from the line in four of their first five contests this season, New Orleans has shot above that mark in three of their last five games. Their best performance came against UIW, where they made 86.4 percent of their free throws on 23 attempts.
Sephora Kayolo recently returned to play after missing all of last season due to injury. She started in her debut against #5 LSU on December 7 and became the eighth player on the roster this year to score in double figures when she tallied 13 points against UIW, including three three-pointers.
Last season marked the first meetings between New Orleans and UTRGV, with each team winning once. Before UTRGV’s formation, New Orleans faced UT-Pan American (UTPA) 28 times from 1987 to 2013 and held a dominant record of 25-3 over those years. Against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, however, New Orleans has struggled historically with a record of just three wins in twenty-four matchups and no victories since 2019.
UTRGV enters these games with a record of four wins and seven losses overall (1-1 in conference). The Vaqueros dropped both contests at the Malibu Classic before the holiday break but have secured a conference win over Stephen F. Austin in an overtime game that ended 87-85. Charlotte O’Keefe had been leading both her conference and nation with an average of over thirteen rebounds per game but has missed recent matches due to injury. Jalayah Ingram leads UTRGV in scoring at nearly seventeen-and-a-half points per game and ranks tenth nationally for free throw attempts.
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi currently holds one win and eight losses (0-2 conference), having lost eight straight after opening their season with a victory over College of Biblical Studies. During that losing streak, they faced high-level competition from Texas A&M and Oklahoma State. Samora Watson leads Corpus Christi offensively with an average of more than twelve points per contest; her highest output was seventeen points versus UTEP. Marissa Shelton also contributes double-digit scoring averages for the Islanders.
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