Women’s Basketball Heads To Prairie View A&M Saturday To Close Out First Half Of SWAC Play

• Texas Southern closes out the first half with the start of a three-game road trip at Prairie View A&M on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

• Fourth-year head coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke is back on the TSU sidelines for the third straight season. She led TSU to the SWAC Regular Season Championship for the first time in school history in 2012-13 in addition to a second-place finish in 2019-20. The team made it to the semifinals of the SWAC Tournament (before COVID-19) in 2020 and a quarterfinals appearance in 2021.

• A former head coach at PVAMU from 2005-2010, Cooper-Dyke is 4-2 all-time against Prairie View A&M. She last faced the Panthers on Jan. 9, 2021, when TSU won 79-76. TSU is 10-3 over PVAMU since 2015.

• Head coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke is 76-46 all-time in the month of January and 19-8 at TSU.

• TSU has faced off against teams from four conferences in 2021-22. TSU has squared off against teams from the Pac-12 (3), Conference USA, SEC and Big 12. TSU is a de facto member of the Pac-12 this year with games at Arizona, Colorado and USC.

• Jala Buster has turned into a block machine with one or more blocks in 13 of TSU’s 15 games. She has three games with three blocks apiece.

 • PVAMU is 4-4 in SWAC play under veteran head coach Sandy Pugh. Both TSU and PVAMU have beaten the same teams in SWAC play as Diana Rosenthal leads with 14.5 points followed by 10.5 points and 7.6 rebounds from Gerlyn Smith.

• TSU is slowly nearing toward a full roster after early injuries. TSU’s scoring output has nearly doubled as they average 72.5 points in SWAC play while shooting 42.5 percent.

• TSU was picked to finish sixth while guard Ataiya Bridges was named to the 2021-22 Preseason All-SWAC Second Team. The Tigers feature a revamped roster with 12 newcomers and five letterwinners returning.