W Kentucky women head back to NCAA, top UAB 72-57 (Mar 10, 2018)
FRISCO, Texas (AP) Tashia Brown scored seven of her 25 points in less than two minutes and Western Kentucky went on to claim its 20th NCAA Tournament berth with a 72-57 win over UAB in the Conference USA title game on Saturday.
With a one-point lead, Brown made two free throws, a 3-point play and added two free throws with 46 seconds left in the third quarter to give the second-seeded Lady Toppers a 55-47 lead. The top-seeded Blazers had run off nine straight, a 3 by Lea Kerstein, a 3-point play by Katelynn Thomas and Angela Vendrell's trey.
WKU (24-8) iced its second-straight NCAA berth and third in four years when Tashia Brown and Ivy Brown made back-to-back layups, Tashia Brown had two free throws and a jumper by Whitney Creech made it 67-50 with three minutes left.
Creech finished with 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting. Ivy Brown had 11 points and 12 rebounds and Raneem Elgedawy also had 11 points.
Rachael Childress led UAB (26-6) with 16 points and Thomas had 13. The Blazers were in the first title game since 2010 and haven't won a conference tournament since capturing the Great Midwest crown in 1994.
