Tulsa's Robbins overwhelms Southeast in season opener

~The Golden Hurricane's standout senior scored 29 points and grabbed 14 rebounds.

TULSA, Okla. -- Jillian Robbins recorded 29 points and 14 rebounds for her 47th career double-double to lead the Tulsa women's basketball team to a 67-54 victory over Southeast Missouri State on Saturday in the season-opening game for both teams.

A Reynolds Center crowd of 1,258, including Connecticut Sun assistant coach Scott Hawk of the WNBA, watched Robbins take the game over late in the first half.

Tandem Mays, the only other returning starter for the Golden Hurricane off last year's NCAA tournament team, added 15 points.

"We got what we expected out of Jillian and Tandem," Tulsa coach Charlene Thomas-Swinson said. "We're still looking for someone to step up and help us out."

Tulsa's five freshmen logged a combined 85 minutes of playing time. At times, they looked like freshmen. But at times, they also showed glimpses of what led Thomas-Swinson to recruit them.

"I want to give them as much experience as I can to get those jitters out," Thomas-Swinson said. "With everything they are trying to do for me, I think sometimes they try too hard and forget to play the game. Basically, we need them not to play like freshmen."

Southeast Missouri State, playing without head coach B.J. Smith on the bench due a personal leave imposed by the university, held its own against Tulsa for the first 16 minutes of the game and actually led throughout much of the first half.

But after the final media timeout of the half, Tulsa closed out the final 3:29 on a 13-4 run.

"Coach told us we needed to pick it up on both ends of the court," Robbins said. "We weren't playing our game on either end.

"Once we started to communicate, we started to play better. We knew our teammates had our back, so we started to go after steals and loose balls a little harder."

The Golden Hurricane built leads of as many as 19 points before Southeast roared back with a 13-3 run behind Missy Whitney's seven consecutive points.

Whitney, a junior college transfer making her Redhawks debut, scored 16 points in 22 minutes, including a seven-point spurt that temporarily got the Redhawks back in the game in the second half.

Tarina Nixon added eight points followed by Ashley Lovelady with seven and Sonya Daugherty and Joiceline Thesing with six apiece.

The Redhawks were outrebounded 38-32 as Lachelle Lyles and Nixon each had six rebounds.

Assistant coach John Ishee was the acting head coach for Southeast, which next plays at home Tuesday against Central Arkansas.