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Feb. 25, 2012

Final Stats | Photo Gallery  | Box Score

AUSTIN, Texas - Behind an aggressive defensive effort and a career offensive effort by Chassidy Fussell, the Texas Women's Basketball team downed the Oklahoma Sooners, 87-62, on Saturday evening at the Frank Erwin Center. It was the 100th victory at Texas for Longhorns' coach Gail Goestenkors.

It was the largest margin of victory for UT in Big 12 play this season, and four Longhorns finished in double figures. Fussell's 30 points matched her career high, and she added seven rebounds.

Ashleigh Fontenette added 18 points and seven rebounds. Chelsea Bass recorded 13 points, 11 of which came in the second half. Yvonne Anderson finished with 12 points, a team-high nine rebounds and a career-high eight steals.

UT poked away a Big 12-high 18 steals, and the Sooners were doomed by 25 turnovers, the most the Longhorns have forced in league play. UT scored 25 points off turnovers.

The Longhorns went ahead at the 15:36 mark of the first half and opened up a 35-23 lead heading into the break, spurred by Fussell's 15 first-half points.

Whitney Hand played all 40 minutes of regulation and led the Sooners with a 13-point, 13-rebound double-double. Morgan Hook scored 11 points, but committed a career-high seven turnovers.

The Sooners' Aaryn Ellenberg, who has averaged more than 18 points in the last three games, sat on the bench for much of the first half after picking up two early fouls. She fouled out with 4:42 left in the game, finishing with nine points.

UT will take on the Missouri Tigers on Tuesday, Feb. 28 in Columbia, Mo. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. Central.

POSTGAME NOTES

TEAM
-Head coach Gail Goestenkors notched her 100th victory at The University of Texas. She is now 100-63 in five seasons and 496-161 overall (20th season).
-Texas' 25-point victory over Oklahoma was its largest margin in the series since a 72-36 win over the Sooners on Feb. 26, 2005
-Texas' 87 points were its most since putting up 89 against Delaware State (Dec. 28)
-Texas' 25-point margin of victory was its largest in a Big 12 Conference game this season

INDIVIDUALS

Yvonne Anderson
-Collected a career-high eight steals
-Reached double-figure scoring for the 17th time this season and 43rd in her career with 12 points
-Is now seven points shy of reaching the 1,000-career point mark with 993 points in 126 games
-Pulled down a team-high nine rebounds

Chelsea Bass
-Reached double-figure scoring for the seventh time this season and 13th of her career with 13 points
-Matched her season-high points in a game
-Averaging 10.3 ppg over the last three games after missing five games due to injury

Ashleigh Fontenette
-Reached double-figure scoring for the 18th time this season and 65th of her career with 18 points

Chassidy Fussell
-Matched her career-high with a game-high 30 points
-Recorded her 12th 20-point game of the season and 23rd of her career
-Reached double-figure scoring for the 24th time this season and 52nd of her career
-Led Texas in scoring for the 18th time
-Is now 11 points shy of reaching the 1,000-career point mark with 989 points in 60 games
-Matched her career-high with nine field goals made

Ashley Gayle
-Dished out a season-high six assists
-Missed the second dunk attempt of her career with 5:39 remaining in the game

Head coach Gail Goestenkors

Opening Statement:(I'm) just really proud of the team. I thought we came out and really set the tone on the defensive end of the floor. It was a tremendous team effort and I thought everybody really played well,played together and played hard. It showed in our 18 steals - that was effort. We were determined to get the hustle plays. I think overall we did that. I'm just really proud of the team. We sustained it for basically 40 minutes, and OU, they are a great team. So this was a tremendous test for us. We played with a sense of urgency that you would expect a team in our position to play with, so I'm just proud of the team.

On the sense of urgency the team played with:We talked after the Baylor game, "we just have to take it one game at a time and we need to treat every game like it is our last." We can't afford to look ahead and say that we need to win this or that, we just need to win the next game, the game that is in front of us. This was that game for us, OU, and now the only game that I'm concerned with at this moment is Missouri, period.

Sophomore guard Chassidy Fussell

On difference between winning by a huge margin and a smaller one: A win is a win. I feel likeit's going to be a big momentum boost for us going into the Missouri game and then finishing out the season but a win is a win for us.

Sophomore guard Chelsea Bass

On the difference between tonight and other games this season:I think we just came out and we know that our backs are against the wall and we came out and we were playing together. Before the game our thing was, hard work equals fun. So, defensively we started off working our butts off, and you could tell that we were having fun. When we have fun we are a really hard team to stop. That was the main thing, we worked really hard on both ends, crashing the boards, playing defense and we had fun.

Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale

On her team's performance tonight:The entire 40 minutes we looked dysfunctional. We didn't play with great intensity. We didn't play with purpose from top to bottom. You can start with a combo of two point guards who turned it over 13 times together, to missed layups on the interior, to Whitney (Hand) going five of 20, or whatever it was. Just top to bottom, inside and out, as poor as we could play.

On her team's youth: We're just young, and we don't always understand. Right now, I've got a bunch of guys that are looking around going, "It's February, and we've got how many more games?" They're so young. They haven't been through this grind before. We've played a ton of close games. Everything has been just a slug-fest, and they haven't yet figured out how to be consistent with their energy and their purpose. It's easier to do that a home, I think, and hard to do consecutively. We're struggling with both of those things.