One game. That is all that separates the UCF women’s basketball team from another Conference USA championship.<\/p>\n
UCF (16-17) is headed to its third title game in five years after its 89-77 win over No. 5 seed UTEP (22-10) in Friday’s semifinal game at the BOK Center.<\/p>\n
The Knights now have a chance to make history as the lowest seed (No. 8) to win the tournament. They will face the winner of Tulsa-East Carolina at 8 p.m. ET Saturday in a nationally televised contest on CBS Sports Network for the chance at an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
Friday’s victory was the epitome of a team win as six Knights scored in double figures to put up the most points by a team in a semifinal game and the seventh most in a single game in C-USA tournament history.<\/p>\n
Freshman of the Year Briahanna Jackson paced with 18 points. Kayli Keough added a season-high 17 points. Sara Djassi sank 6-of-8 for a career-high 17 points in addition to a team-high 10 rebounds for her first career double-double. Gevenia Carter had 16 points, Erika Jones tallied 11 points and Andrea Hines matched her season-high 10 points.<\/p>\n
For the second time since the tournament started, the Knights scored their most points in a half in two years. UCF’s 40 points against the Miners was two more than its production against Houston in the opening round.<\/p>\n
The back-and-forth first half featured nine lead changes and seven tied scores. The Knights took their largest lead, 36-28, after an 11-2 run that was capped by Carter’s third 3-pointer of the game.<\/p>\n
Foul trouble toward the end of the half put the Miners on the free throw line, where they were able to reclaim a 43-40 advantage at the break.<\/p>\n
UCF’s heart only seemed to grow in size after halftime. It was evident that the team would leave nothing left on the BOK Center floor.<\/p>\n
The frontcourt set the tone as Jones and Keough each made good on two and-1 plays thanks to opportunities set up by offensive rebounds to put their team back on top, 49-47.<\/p>\n
Hines drilled a 3-pointer from the right wing and Jackson beat the shot clock buzzer with a long-range trey to cap the 9-0 run, and the team never looked back.<\/p>\n
UCF now holds an 11-5 record in the post-season tournament, which includes a 2-0 mark in title games. The Knights are one of two teams to ever make a 4-0 run through the tournament, which they achieved in 2009 for their first title. UCF also won the 2011 championship.<\/p>\n
In addition to watching the game on television, fans can tune into Scott Adams’ free audio broadcast, which is also available on mobile devices. Live stats are also available via UCFAthletics.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One game. That is all that separates the UCF women’s basketball team from another Conference USA championship. UCF (16-17) is headed to its third title game in five years after its 89-77 win over No. 5 seed UTEP (22-10) in Friday’s semifinal game at the BOK Center. The Knights now have a chance to make history as the lowest seed…","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":46983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[7403,9380,1952,6402,3346,9602,202,5198],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-46982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-andrea-hines","tag-briahanna-jackson","tag-gevenia-carter","tag-kayli-keough","tag-ncaa","tag-sara-djassi","tag-alumni","tag-womens-basketball"],"yoast_head":"\n