Marshall, Rice Set for C-USA Tourney Clash

FRISCO, Texas – Marshall and Rice will face off Wednesday in a second round matchup at the 2022 Conference USA Women's Basketball Tournament.

Wednesday's game is set for a 12 p.m. ET/11 a.m. CT tip and will be carried on ESPN+. The Herd enters the bracket as the East Division's five seed, while the Owls are the fourth seed out of the West Division.

The tournament runs from Tuesday to Saturday and will be held at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco.

The Thundering Herd enters the game with a 15-12 overall record and went 10-8 in Conference USA play. The Owls are 13-12 and finished at 8-9 in the league.

Game Details
Game Notes: https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sidearm.nextgen.sites/herdzone.com/documents/2022/3/8/3_9_22_Rice_Tourney_Notes.pdf
Live Stats: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=404072&confid=cusa
Live Video: https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=b039c57b-b224-4807-a17c-a7bea389cfa1
Marshall Radio: 88.1 FM in Huntington and online http://listen.streamon.fm/wfghhd5
Series History: 18 all-time meetings – Rice leads 11-7
Last Meeting: March 5, 2022 in Bowling Green, Kentucky – Marshall won 66-52

Last Time Out
Kennedi Colclough tallied 13 points and 11 rebounds for Marshall's first double-double of the season as the host Thundering Herd won 58-51 in wire-to-wire fashion over WKU Saturday afternoon at the Cam Henderson Center.

WKU wound up 18-11 and 11-7 in the league.

The victory marked just the second time Marshall has finished with double-digit C-USA victories (10 in 2018-19).

It was also the Herd's second win over the Lady Tops in four days, following an 80-62 triumph at E.A. Diddle Arena in Bowling Green on Wednesday.

Savannah Wheeler led the home team with 14 points and four assists, while Brianah Ferby added 13 and Aaliyah Dunham tallied 11. Ferby and Lorelei Roper also grabbed eight rebounds apiece as MU outrebounded the visitors, 43-41.

WKU was paced by a near-double-double effort from Meral Abdelgawad (16 points, nine rebounds). She also had three assists and three steals.

Marshall jumped out quickly in the first quarter, building a 13-point advantage (17-4) on a layup by Roper at the 4:51 mark.

The lead hovered around the 10-point mark for much of the second quarter before WKU closed the period on a 9-3 run as MU took a 35-29 lead into the half.

The third quarter saw few points (10-7 Herd), but WKU mounted a charge in the final stanza. Marshall's Colclough made a basket to put the Herd up 49-38 at the 7:36 mark, but the Lady Tops ran off the next 10 points on baskets by four different players to draw within one (49-48) with 5:09 remaining.

That's when Marshall's defense stiffened, however, allowing just one WKU field goal the rest of the way. On the offensive end, the Herd rallied from what had been a subpar free throw shooting day to make 5-for-6 in the closing stages.

MU led the game for 39 minutes, eight seconds.

WKU held big margins on points in the paint (30-18) and bench points (15-3).

The Opponent
The Owls come into Wednesday's contest at 13-12 overall and 8-9 in Conference USA.

The team went 5-3 in non-conference play.

Ashlee Austin is the team's leading scorer at 16.5 points (5th in C-USA) per game, while Malia Fisher tops the rebounding category with 8.4 boards (3rd in C-USA). Destiny Jackson paces the Owls in assists (4.7; 1st in C-USA) and steals (1.6), respectively, and Fisher swats 1.1 shots per contest. Maya Bokunewicz is third in the conference with 2.2 three-pointers per game, while Austin's 35.9 percentage from deep leads the way. Haylee Swayzee is Rice's top free throw shooter at 87 percent on the season. From the field, Austin is fourth in the league, shooting 46.9 percent (136-for-290).

Rice is second in the conference in three-point field goal percentage defense (25.2), while it is 13th in scoring defense, yielding 66.2 points per game.

The head coach is Lindsay Edmonds, who is in her first year at the helm of the Lady Toppers.

In the all-time series between the two schools, Rice has won 11 of 18 meetings, but this is the first in the Conference USA Tournament. A scheduled quarterfinal matchup in the 2020 tournament was canceled by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marshall trailed for much of the game in the teams' first meeting this season (January 15 in Houston), but routed the Owls 21-3 in the fourth quarter to pull away for a 66-53 victory.

For all of the latest information on the Marshall women's basketball team, follow the Herd on Twitter @HerdWBB, Facebook at Marshall University Basketball and on HerdZone.com.

Marshall University Athletics

Next Event

Related Videos