Southern Miss
UCF
Lady Eagle Basketball Falls to UCF, 74-60
2/16/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 16, 2012
Box Score | Box Score in PDF Format 
Southern Miss drops to 9-16 overall and 3-9 in Conference USA play while UCF evened its record to 12-12 and 7-5.
"Hats off the UCF because we told our team going into this game about their toughness," Coach Joye Lee-McNelis said. "They are the toughest team in the league. Kayli Keough had an unbelievable first half for them. She did a phenomenal job. You have to give them credit."
Jamierra Faulkner scored a team-high 22 points to go with four assists while Tanecka Carey and Nitesha Pierce added 12 and 10 points, respectively. Ance Celmina grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds for the Lady Eagles.
UCF's Kayli Keough led all scorers with a game-high 24 points including 17 in the first half. Aisha Patrick scored 18 second half points and Gevenia Carter chipped in 13. Andrea Hines and Erika Jones pulled down 10 rebounds each.
"When you think about the games we've won, we got off to very good starts," McNelis said. "We made those easy baskets early. We missed four of them right off the bat. This team struggles to regroup from that. We rallied back in that first half to go in at the half with a tie. In the second half, it was all Aisha Patrick. She is so tough. She plays very hard. She and Kayli Keough created opportunities for the rest of their team to score offensively."
Kayli Keough scored the first five points of the game in putting the Knights out front 5-0 to start the game before Sedreka Plummer put the Lady Eagles in the scoring column on two free throws. Carter's basket gave UCF a 7-2 lead before USM outscored UCF 9-2 to tie the game at 11-11. The teams played evenly for four minutes, then, UCF scored eight unanswered points for the 27-19 lead with 3:35 remaining before the half. Southern Miss then closed out the half with a 10-2 run to tie the game at the half.
UCF scored the first four points to start the second half. Faulkner connected on a three to get USM within 33-32. The two teams traded a pair of free throws and a couple of baskets before UCF got a back-to-back baskets from Keough and Kelly to push the lead to five. The Lady Eagles were able to keep within striking distance, but an 8-4 spurt pushed the lead to seven, 48-41 at the 11:42 mark. Southern Miss managed to claw its way back to within three, but just as quickly, Carter kick-started an 11-0 run that saw the Knights lead balloon to 14, 64-50. During that run, the Knights defense held USM scoreless. Southern Miss could not recover as UCF connected on 8-of-10 free throws down the stretch and held USM to just 10 points in the final three minutes to seal the win.
UCF held the edge in rebounding, 49-40. Southern Miss finished the game shooting 31.1 percent from the field, but had a season-low 11 turnovers.
Southern Miss is back in action on Sunday against Tulane at 2 p.m. The game has been designated as the "Pink Game."
