AUSTIN – Huston-Tillotson University's opened the 2024-25 basketball season Friday but the Rams will have to wait for their first win as they fell 83-50 to visiting Florida Memorial on the first day of the Tiffany Jackson HBCU Women's Basketball Classic.
Florida Memorial, representing the NAIA's Sun Conference, led from start to finish as the Lions built a comfortable lead early. The Lions took their first double-digit lead midway through the first quarter, and never let their advantage slip below nine points the rest of the game.
HT freshman
Aliyah Carter led the Rams with 10 points, while junior transfer
Wilashia Burleson chipped in nine points.
Destiny Stanford and
Serese Williams contributed eight points apiece for the Rams.
Alyza Winston scored a game-high 16 points to lead three Florida Memorial (1-0) players in double-figures. Her teammate Agar Farres Garcia scored 12 points and pulled in 14 rebounds.
Playing from behind forced the Rams to go to the 3-pointer early, but their long-range shooting didn't help their cause as HT made only 1 of their 14 3-point attempts (7.1 percent).
The game was the second contest of the inaugural Tiffany Jackson HBCU Women's Basketball Classic. The first game featured Texas College (which compete alongside HT in the Red River Athletic Conference) and Philander Smith (Ark.), a member institution of the newly rebranded HBCU Athletic Conference.
The event honors the life of Tiffany Jackson, a native Texan played collegiately at the University of Texas before going on to a 10-year career in the WNBA. When she retired as a player, Jackson spent four years as an assistant coach at Texas before being named the head women's basketball at fellow HBCU Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, in 2022. Jackson lost her battle with breast cancer before the start of the 2022-23 season.
– HT –
