TORONTO – The first women’s game of GLOBL JAM 2025 was as one-sided as it gets, as the Texas Longhorns, representing the USA, pummeled Puerto Rico’s under-23 squad.
The Longhorns owned the glass, forced turnovers with relentless pressure and took advantage of their substantial possession advantage in an 85-45 win at the Mattamy Athletic Centre.
Texas pressed on inbounds, forcing back-to-back turnovers resulting in consecutive post-up buckets by Kyla Oldacre, extending their lead to 38-10 in the second quarter.
The six-foot-six centre significantly outsized Puerto Rico’s frontcourt and feasted on easy paint points. The Longhorns were one step ahead throughout the game, beating Puerto Rico to spots for easy steals on passes and a thunderous block from Justice Carlton.
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Oldacre scored 17 points and added 11 rebounds in just under nine first-half minutes before leaving the game due to a lower-body injury and Carlton led Texas in scoring with 18 points, adding eight rebounds as Puerto Rico had no answer for their inside scoring game. The Longhorns got to their spots at will early, shooting 60 per cent from inside the arc in the first half.
“I call it padding her stats. She’ll miss one and get it back and stick it back in,” said Longhorn’s coach Vic Schaefer of Oldacre after the game. “But you know, she plays really hard and puts herself in a position to get a lot of those rebounds. So I think that was the difference in halves. The second half, we didn’t have her cleaning up our mess, you know, we had some mess.”
The first half, she just kind of cleaned it up and everybody went ho hum and thought we were playing good. I’m not sure we were playing that good. She just made it look better.”
Giselle Maul and Jasmine Nivar scored 12 apiece to lead Puerto Rico and Abeliz Rodriguez netted 3-of-5 triples for nine points.
The Longhorns hit the paint repetitively in the first quarter via cuts and well-placed passes, frequently drawing free throws. Teya Sidberry took advantage of a Puerto Rico miss, easily finishing in transition to extend Texas’s lead to 15-3. Ashton Judd was the only Longhorn to take a triple, making 2-of-3 as they finished the opening quarter up 21-5.
Their lead could have been far larger had they converted on more than three of their 12 free throw attempts.
Arianis Rivera made a nice hesitation move off the catch and sunk a baseline floater to cut into the sizable deficit.
After another Sidberry make brought the Texas bench to their feet with a roar, Rodriguez answered for Puerto Rico by sinking a tough three from the wing. She slid backwards, knocked onto her backside by the contest, but missed the resulting and-one free throw. Rodriguez made another wing triple later the quarter, scoring six of Puerto Rico’s nine second-quarter points.
Oldacre and Diann Jackson collided awkwardly under the basket midway through the second. After staying down for a few minutes, the Texas centre was helped to the locker room by staff and appeared unable to put weight on her right ankle. There was no update on Oldacre’s status from Schaefer after the game.
The dominant big scored a team-high 12 in the second and Carlton chipped in ten as the Longhorns’ frontcourt was unimpeded getting to their spots. Drive and kicks from guards Bryanna Preston and Judd were often finished with short corner jumpers or bully baskets in the lane as Texas finished the half up 58-14. Preston finished the game with a team-high 11 assists.
“ Playing for Coach Schaefer is a lot about his offence. Setting good screens, doing a lot of the dirty work, I guess you could call it. Like setting good screens offensive (and) defensive rebounding, denying, fronting the post player, things like that,” Carlton explained.
“The core player, for coach Schaefer, in his offence, is a little bit more of the dirty worker, I guess. Which is kind of an adjustment, a little bit for me.”
Puerto Rico opened the second half on a mini 6-2 run, with a couple more deep balls contributing to the successful stretch. They showed impressive resolve going into the second half down a near insurmountable 44 points, winning the third quarter 15-12 with Giselle Maul scoring nine points on 3-of-4 shooting in the frame.
They went on to also win the entire second half, 31-27, with Rodriguez nailing yet another triple off the catch. But the Longhorn lead was too steep, as they coasted through the final 20 minutes to a convincing victory.
Puerto Rico will hit the floor at Mattamy again to take on Brazil at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, while Texas is set to square off against Canada at 8 p.m.
from Sportsnet.ca
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