Women’s Basketball Starts 2026 with Victory Over Louisiana

Thursday, January 1

Lafayette, La.

4 p.m.

Troy University

11-2,2-0Sun Belt

Louisiana

1-12,0-3Sun Belt

Troy

Louisiana

Women’s Basketball Starts 2026 with Victory Over Louisiana

1/1/2026 7:17:00 PM | Basketball (W)

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

By: Troy Athletics Communications

LAFAYETTE, La. – The Troy women's basketball team opened the new year with an 80-54 victory over Louisiana in the Cajundome on Thursday afternoon to start 2-0 in Sun Belt Conference play.

With the victory, Troy (11-2, 2-0 SBC) started 2-0 in league play for the first time since 2019-20 and earned its fourth win over Louisiana (1-12, 0-3 SBC) in the Cajundome over the last five seasons.

Zay Dyer led Troy on a team-high 16 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. Emani Jenkins followed with four 3-pointers to post 14 points, while Rachel Leggett rounded out the trio of starters in double-figures with 10 points. Leggett scored six points in the opening quarter. Off the bench, Detavia Salter set a career-high of four blocks and tied her career-high in points (11) in 19 minutes. Troy outrebounded Louisiana 60-37, as all but one Trojan who entered the game recorded at least one rebound.

Aside from a 14-of-15 showing at the charity stripe from Louisiana, the offense shot just 28.8 percent from the field and 11.1 percent from deep. The Ragin' Cajuns relied on 15 points from Amijah Price, but shot 5-of-20 from the field and 1-of-8 from long range. Mikayla Manley (10) and Bianca Silva (13) also scored double-digits, but the trio combined for 13-of-30 from the field for Louisiana.

Booming to Start the New Year
Troy opened on a 7-0 run to start the ballgame as Leggett grabbed her own miss and finished with a second-chance layup to open the run. After a pair of misses for Louisiana, Fortuna Ngnawo found Jenkins for her first triple of the game. Ngnawo finished the next possession at the 2:10 mark with a fastbreak jumper off a steal by Leggett.

At the midway point of the first quarter, Louisiana trimmed the margin to four, 9-5, via a jumper from Silva. Leggett answered with a driving layup, and Saniya Jackson hit a pair at the charity stripe to push the lead back to 13-5 with 3:02 left and held it until the start of the second.

Kahlen Norris started the second quarter for Louisiana with a fastbreak layup, but Troy responded with another 7-0 run. Dyer started the run with back-to-back buckets before Jenkins cashed in her second 3-pointer of the game, pushing the score to 24-11.

Troy closed the first half on another surge, highlighted by a pair of free throws from Ashley Baez and a turnaround jumper from Salter. Leggett capped the half at the free-throw line as Troy took a 40-22 lead into the break.

Jenkins opened the second half with her third triple after Dyer got the block and assist. The margin remained steady until 6:06 showed on the clock, when Troy broke out an 11-0 run that lasted until 1:30 showed in the third quarter. Dyer started the run with a free throw, and Salter finished it with a second-chance tip-in layup to make the lead 32, 62-30.

Louisiana cut the deficit to 25 before the start of the fourth, but buckets from Dyer and Ngnawo pushed it to 29, 67-38, 55 seconds in. Troy never let the margin drop below 21 as it coasted to an 80-54 victory over Louisiana.

Head Coach Chanda Rigby
"Here we are in the Cajundome in Louisiana, I'm very grateful to be walking away with a win. These road conference wins are hard to come by, but we got the job done. The most important thing was coming off 10 days off. But our veterans did a great job delivering the message that we can't let anything slide. And the effort showed. It wasn't the cleanest game, but there's plenty to improve upon. The Cajundome is a tricky place to play in. We've won some good ones here, but we've also lost some big ones here. And the biggest reasons why we didn't fall into that was our leadership."

Up Next
Troy heads to Hattiesburg, Miss., to take on Southern Miss on Saturday, Jan. 3 at 2 p.m.

New Year Stats
• Zay Dyer returned to double figures for points for the 22^nd time in her last 26 games with 10 points in the second quarter. She finished with a team-high of 16.
• At 5-10, Shakirah Edwards broke into double-digits for blocks this season, with her 10^th block coming in the second quarter. She has a block in six games with multiple in three.
• Rachel Leggett scored her first career 3-pointer as a Trojan after starting 0-of-9 this season, claiming her fifth game in double-figures (10).
• With the victory over Louisiana in the Cajundome, the Trojans improve to 7-10 on the road and 22-14 overall.
• Emani Jenkins hit four triples over the Ragin' Cajuns for her eighth game with three or more 3-pointers. She's hit 38 threes over the last 10 games.
• Detavia Salter tied her career-high with 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting, while rejecting a career-high four shots.
• Despite her streak of 15 straight games in double-digits for scoring ending with eight points, Fortuna Ngnawo finished with double-figures for rebounds (10) for the sixth time of 2025-26.
• Troy dominated the rebound battle 60-37, with 23 points off second chance opportunities.