Southern Miss
(1) Western Kentucky
Southern Miss Falls 67-56 in Championship to Western Kentucky
3/11/2017 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. â€" Southern Miss' spirited rally was too much to overcome a 20-point Western Kentucky lead, falling 67-56 in the Conference USA Championship game Saturday afternoon inside Legacy Arena.
"We got off to a slow start and Western Kentucky shot the cover off of the basketball," said Coach Joye Lee-McNelis. "We tried different ways to defend them and nothing mattered. That's a true sign of a veteran team, because of the seniors that they have, and they've been in this environment. They came in calm, cool and collected and they're a very good basketball team. It kind of shell-shocked us. That first half is the half that they killed us. That second half is when we rallied and made runs. We cut it to nine and we didn't box out on the other end. We won the other two ball games (in the C-USA Tournament) with toughness down the stretch and we didn't have that tonight. We weren't able to execute when we needed to."
Seven consecutive points over a 44-second span brought Southern Miss to within 43-31 at the 7:49 mark of the third quarter, courtesy of a three-pointer by Brittanny Dinkins and layups from Jayla King and Megan Brown.
Dinkins, who had a game-high 25 points, brought her career point total to 608 points, third most points in a single-season and the fourth Lady Eagle to score 600 or more points over the span of a single campaign.
King's layup at the third quarter's 3:16 mark forced WKU to call a timeout as its lead fell to 50-42, the first time in single-digits since there was 4:42 remaining in the opening stanza.
Keri Jewett-Giles' layup with 7:39 left in the game were the first points of the fourth quarter, and the two teams jockeyed between eight and 11 point-margins until the final minute.
WKU led 9-0 before Southern Miss cut it to 12-7, then pushed the advantage to 22-9 at the first-quarter intermission.
Sidnee Bopp went 4-for-4 on three-pointers in the first half, leading the Lady Toppers to a 6-for-9 clip.
Dinkins scored 18 of her 25 points in the second half en route to her fourteenth 20-point game of the season. She attempted three of the four deep balls for Southern Miss in the second half and made all of them.
The Lady Eagles will await their postseason fate following Monday's selection shows. Stay tuned to SouthernMiss.com and @SouthernMissWBB for more information.
