The University of the Incarnate Word plays its first-ever Lone Star Conference Women's Basketball Championship game this Thursday at noon, taking on the No. 10-ranked Midwestern State University Mustangs at the Allen Event Center in Allen, Texas.
Thursday's game will be the first-ever women's collegiate basketball game at the arena and the two teams will start off a four-game, tournament opening day for women's hoops in the LSC.
Incarnate Word (14-12 overall and 9-11 in the LSC) earned their No. 6-seed by defeating Texas Woman's University in the last game of the season, 48-44, in Denton. Midwestern State, meanwhile is the No. 3-seed of the tournament and had their spot in the field secured much earlier in the season.
In the regular season, MSU got wins against UIW in San Antonio and Wichita Falls by double-digits each game – 68-50 at the McDermott Center on December 14th and 76-65 at Ligon Coliseum.
The Mustangs (19-7 overall, 15-5 in the LSC) are making their first appearance in the LSC Championships since 2003 and ended the regular season with a victory, 64-55 over Eastern New Mexico, but losing 3-of-4.
MSU features two players averaging double digits in scoring with Savannah Carver and Kirsti Degelia, with 15.9 and 11.6 points per game, respectively.
Carver is a senior shooting guard from Amarillo, Texas and finished 3rd in the Lone Star Conference in scoring and 7th in the LSC in 3-point shooting percentage. She is also tied with UIW's Katy Cooke at 14th in the conference with a 1.5 steals-per-game average.
Degelia is the 19th-best scorer in the LSC and the Denton, Texas-native plays more of a true point guard position – ranking 12th in the Lone Star in assists-per-game (2.6) – and shot 80.8% from the free throw line for 6th-best in the LSC.
As a team, MSU boasts the best scoring offense in the conference with a 73.1 points-per-game average (Incarnate Word is 7th in the LSC with 62.7 ppg). Midwestern State also has the top 3-point shooting percentage as a team at 35.3% (UIW is 8th at 29.1%) while also being the second-best 3-point defending team (schools shoot 25.9% against MSU).
The Mustangs also feature the second-best rebounding margin (+4.1), turnover margin (+3.2) and average an impressive 9.1 steals per game.
On the other side, University of the Incarnate Word has more players in the conference's top 30 in scoring – Cooke (11.7 for 18th), Ashlyn Green (11.2 for 23rd), Ifunanya Mora (10.9 for 25th) and Jocelyn Jarmon (10.2 for 27th) – than MSU.
Cooke, a junior guard from Marble Falls, Texas is also the 3rd-ranked free throw shooter in the LSC at 83.5% and the 4th-best 3-point shooter in the league at 35.5%. At the point for UIW, she is 5th in the LSC with a 3.4 assists-per-game average and is tied with MSU's Carver in 3-point field goals made this season with 43 (a 1.7 per-game average and 5th in the Lone Star).
Incarnate Word also has two players in the top 10 in rebounding average in the Lone Star Conference in junior forward Jarmon and senior center Chloe Wallace at 7.5 (5th) and 7.0 (7th), respectively, and the Cardinals also have the second-best scoring defense in the league with a 59.4 per-game average.
UIW also has the third-best team in the LSC in rebounding defense – average rebounds allowed to opponents – with a 36.1 average (MSU is 4th at 37.0).
Incarnate Word also ended the regular season with a victory, 48-44 over Texas Woman's University in Denton – but the major difference between UIW's path to the LSC Championships and MSU's was that the Cardinals had to win on the last day of the season in order to even get in to the conference tournament.
The winner of Thursday's game will face off against the winner of TWU (the #7 seed) and West Texas A&M University (the #2 seed) on Saturday, March 3rd at noon. The Pioneers and Lady Buffs face off immediately following the UIW-MSU game, so it won't take very long for the winning team to know who is next in their quest for the Lone Star Conference Women's Basketball Championship.
Fans wanting to view Live Stats during the game can see them by clicking this link.
The games will be streamed on Fox Sports Southwest online for free. Fans can view the game by clicking this link.
Incarnate Word will have its own broadcast team on-site, doing play-by-play for the game, courtesy of KUIW online radio.
Full Women's Championship Bracket
