SIUE women's basketball team collects easy road victory at Tennessee Tech

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – SIUE women's basketball team never trailed Saturday and collected an 83-68 road victory at Tennessee Tech.

"This was a total team win," said SIUE Head Coach Paula Buscher. "We had production out of every single player on the court and on the bench. They stayed together tremendously as a team in a little bit of an adverse situation at times."

SIUE improved to 2-0 in Ohio Valley Conference play, winning its first two league games for the first time since defeating Jacksonville State and Tennessee Tech in back-to-back games to start the 2011-12 season. The Cougars are 7-8 overall.

SIUE's Shronda Butts led all players with 26 points on 9 of 16 shooting from the field. She knocked down all seven of her free throws and led the Cougars with six assists.

"My teammates did a great job of getting me open," said Butts. It was her eighth 20-plus scoring game of the season.

"She is such a competitor and such a leader," said Buscher. "She got four fouls, and I think a lot of people would say you need to take her out because you need her late. That just shows the confidence I have in her. She adjusted her game."

Sidney Smith and Gwen Adams joined Butts in double figures with 14 and 13 points, respectively.

The Cougars won the battled on the boards with a 47-37 edge in rebounding.

"I thought Beck came up with some huge rebounds when we needed them," said Buscher.

CoCo Moore led the squad with a career-high 10 rebounds.

"I liked the way we pursued the rebounds tonight," Buscher added.

SIUE held Tennessee Tech to 39 percent shooting, including 6 percent shooting from three-point range. The Golden Eagles, 5-10 overall and 1-1 in the OVC, finished the game 1 of 16 from beyond the arc.

Samaria Howard led Tennessee Tech's offense with 23 points.

"We came together with defense and got some stops," said Butts. "That helped us on offense."

Despite the Cougars having the lead all but 34 seconds of game while the teams were tied 32-32 with 1:43 to play in the second period, Buscher admitted the game was much tighter than the final score indicated.

"That was a matter of us making sure we knocked down free throws because we didn't shoot particularly well from the free throw line in the first half," said Buscher.

SIUE was 8 of 13 from the free throw line in the first half and later hit 9 of its last 10 free throws in the final three minutes of the game.

The Cougars return to the Vadalabene Center Tuesday for their OVC homecourt debut. SIUE battles Belmont in a 7 p.m. game.