It was a fun sight to see Kristy Curry "fist-bump" her staff
with time still on the clock, knowing a win was well in hand.
Next,
she kneeled in front of me on press row, called out some last minute
instructions to her team on the floor, and looked back at me (still on the
air), and lip synched the word "finally."
Maybe
not a subject she would talk much about going in, but she doesn't have to worry
about it anymore.
Coach
Curry has a win in Austin in her seventh try after the Lady Raiders knocked off
Texas 66-59 at the Frank Erwin Center Wednesday night.
Perhaps her hesitancy was because winning at Texas alone isn't going to
put her team where she wants them anyway. But Wednesday's win could now
vault them a lot closer to accomplishing this season's goals.
The
Lady Raiders now are back above .500 in Big 12 play, they now have 13 regular
season wins, and a chance to get to 4-2 Saturday on their home floor against
Kansas.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this year's Lady Raiders got that
elusive first Austin win - likely the most mature team Curry has had in her six
and a half seasons at Tech.
They
showed that maturity throughout the game in executing game plan goals of
rebounding (outdoing Texas on the boards by 1 and being the first team in almost
a year to hold UT to 30 boards or less) and holding Texas's great scorer Chassidy Fussell to 7 points on
the night - 9 below her season average.
They
also weathered numerous runs by Texas - most notably when they whittled an 11
point deficit with under 11 minutes left in the game down to 1 about 9 minutes
later.
But like their last road win at Oklahoma State, senior leadership pulled
through. Chynna Brown, Casey Morris and Monique Smalls all made big
contributions down the stretch, and like the OSU game, maybe one previous teams wouldn't have been able to chalk up in the win column.
So that "first" in Austin is now out of the way, and Coach
Curry's Lady Raiders can look ahead to the Jayhawks on Saturday.
And it was a happy trip home from Austin for Coach Curry and the team -
finally.