Sunday, February 13
UCF (RV) 54, South Florida (RV) 33
A lock-down defensive effort led the UCF women's basketball team to a 54-33 win over South Florida in the Yuengling Center on Sunday afternoon.
UCF (18-3, 10-1 The American) held South Florida (17-7, 7-3 The American) to just 12 points in the second half, with two single-digit quarters.
The UCF defense was stifling, allowing its fewest points all season, and the fewest since March 7, 2020. The Knights held South Florida to its lowest output in the all-time series, and the 33 points were the fewest for the Bulls since 1996. The Black and Gold limited South Florida to a 27.7 field goal percentage for the game.
The Knights forced South Florida into 17 turnovers, converting them into 20 points. UCF held a slight, 35-34, rebounding edge and got 22 points from its bench.
UCF started off the game strong, with baskets from Masseny Kaba and Tay Sanders and free throws from Diamond Battles putting the visitors up 6-0. The Bulls answered and the score was knotted at 10-10 after the first period.
UCF began to pull away in the second quarter, ballooning its lead to double figures before taking a 27-21 advantage into halftime. The Bulls opened the third quarter outscoring the Knights 5-2 to pull within three, but the Black and Gold responded and held a 40-28 edge after three frames. The Knights outscored the Bulls 14-5 in the fourth quarter to complete the regular season sweep of South Florida.
Brittney Smith led all scorers with 17 points with six rebounds. Masseny Kaba extended her double-figure scoring streak to six games with 14 points. She also had seven rebounds and a career-best five assists.
East Carolina 68, Memphis 38
A record defensive effort helped the East Carolina women's basketball team top Memphis 68-38 on Sunday afternoon inside Minges Coliseum.
ECU improves to 10-14 overall with a 3-8 AAC record while Memphis drops to 13-9 on the year with a 4-7 league record.
Neither team could get much separation in the first quarter, with the biggest lead being four points for each squad. Taniyah Thompson gave ECU a boost, scoring six points while a pair of triples for Memphis helped the Tigers overcome just 25.0% shooting in the first frame.
Heading into the second quarter, ECU held a slim 13-10 lead. But the Pirates defense clamped down and helped begin to stretch that lead out. A layup by Synia Johnson was the only points by either team for the first 3:20 of the quarter. Memphis finally got on the board when Emani Jefferson hit a pair of free
throws, but from there the Pirates went on a run. Three points from Tylar Bennett followed by a
Thompson fast break layup and then a triple from Johnson suddenly made it 23-12 ECU. The Pirates got five more points from Thompson to extend the run to 13-0 and made the score 28-12. Lanetta Williams scored with 45 seconds remaining in the half, the first field goal of the quarter for Memphis and ECU took a 28-14 lead into the break.
After shooting just 1-of-9 (.111) in the second quarter, the Memphis offense shot a comparatively blistering 5-of-11 (.455) in the third. However, the Pirate defense forced nine Tiger turnovers in the third and eight points from Thompson and five more from Johnson helped ECU extend the lead to 46-25 heading into the fourth.
With that large lead, the Pirate offense continued to heat up. Six different Pirates scored in the fourth and the team shot 8-of-13 (.615) from the floor. Thompson added five more points while Da'Ja Green, Alexsia Rose and Paige Lyons each had four.
The 38 points for Memphis were the fewest for a conference opponent since the Pirates moved to the AAC in 2014-15. The previous low was 39, also by Memphis, during the 2015-16 season and the low under head coach Kim McNeill was 42 against Tulsa in 2019-20.
Tulane 80, Cincinnati 56
A strong shooting performance led the Tulane women's basketball team (16-7, 7-4) to its fifth-straight win as it defeated Cincinnati (10-13, 3-8) 80-56 Sunday afternoon in Avron B. Fogelman Arena in the Devlin Fieldhouse. The Green Wave shot an impressive 50 percent from the field as a team while adding eight three-pointers in the contest.
With the victory, Tulane has now won eight of its last nine games and improved its home winning streak to five games.
Redshirt seniors Moon Ursin and Sierra Cheatham led the offensive attack for the Green Wave. Ursin recorded her ninth double-double of the season tallying 18 points and 10 rebounds along with five assists. Cheatham followed with a season-high 15 points on 5-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc. Joining the duo of Ursin and Cheatham in double figures was Dynah Jones who added 14 points of her own.
Tulane controlled the painted area through the whole contest finishing with 40 points in the paint and outrebounding the Bearcats 47-28. The Wave looked to get take advantage of its speed as well scoring 26 fast break points.
Arsula Clark filled up the stat sheet with a team-high six assists to go with eight points and seven rebounds. As a team Tulane dished out 21 total assists marking the fifth time this season it has finished with 20-plus in a game.
Tulane opened the game with five-straight points to build a lead it would not relinquish in the first quarter. Cincinnati pulled the score within one at 10-9 with 4:51 on the clock, but the Green Wave finished with the frame with a 6-2 run to hold a 16-12 advantage at the end of one. Ursin put in work to lead Tulane in the opening quarter with seven points on 3-of-3 shooting and six rebounds.
The Bearcats came out with the first four points of the second quarter to knot the score at 16-16. The tie did not last long, however, as the Wave put together a 10-3 scoring run to reclaim control with a 26-19 advantage with under five minutes in the frame. The deep ball started to fall for Tulane in the second quarter as Cheatham and Freeman combined to knock down three three-pointers. The Green Wave shot an impressive 61.5 percent from the floor as a team to help take a 36-30 lead into the locker room.
Coming out of the break Tulane put together a pair of 7-0 runs to stretch its advantage out to double-digits where it would stay the remainder of the contest. Ursin led the Wave in the frame with seven more points while Cheatham added a pair of triples for six points as Tulane went to the final quarter up 56-41.
The Green Wave extended its advantage out to as many as 25 in the final frame as eight different players found the scoring column in the quarter. As a team, Tulane continued its hot shooting down to the final minutes hitting at a 69.2 percent clip from the field in the fourth quarter to walk away with an 80-56 win.