Feb. 29, 2008
Complete Game Notes in PDF Format 
The University of Memphis women's basketball team (10-18, 7-8 C-USA) has taken it down to the wire in the quest for the No. 5 seed for the upcoming C-USA Championships and will host UCF, the host team for next week's tournament, Saturday, at 2 p.m. in the Elma Roane Fieldhouse.
As it stands now, Memphis is the No. 5 seed heading in to Saturday, but there are five teams within one game of one another in the standings. Memphis needs to win the game on Saturday to try to stay ahead of ECU, USM, Marshall and Tulsa. The Lady Tigers own head-to-head tiebreaker with ECU and Tulsa, but split the series with USM and were swept by Marshall. If more than two teams end up in the tie, the C-USA tiebreaker is a mini round-robin among the tied teams. In the current round robin, Memphis is 3-1, ECU is 2-2 and USM is 1-3, but should Marshall win and move in to the tie following a Memphis loss, the Lady Tigers' would have to add the 0-2 mark and could be seeded anywhere between five and nine.
In UCF, Memphis draws a regular season-ending opponent who is peaking at the right time. UCF put a scare in No. 19/25 UTEP by coming back from 14 down to pull within four in just a three minute span. Thursday night at UAB, UCF trailed by 14 at the half, and came back to pull to 66-63 with 33 seconds left in the game.
With a team with nine true freshmen and one redshirt freshman on the team, it's no surprise that the league freshman of the year may be someone wearing a UCF jersey, but the question will be which one. Forward Tia Lewis ranks fifth in the NCAA in rebounding with 11.5 per game and is one of two C-USA players averaging a double-double with 12.1 points as well. Fellow freshman forward Emma Cannon is also making an impact up front, with 11.2 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, while freshman guard Marshay White is second on the team in scoring with 11.8 ppg and leads the team with 94 assists and 52 steals on the season. White is also the most successful of UCF's three-point shooters, connecting on 29 treys so far this year, while Jelisa Caldwell adds 23 treys of her own so far this season.
Memphis vs. UCF
This is the seventh meeting between Memphis and UCF and the series in knotted at 3-3. Memphis has a two-game winning streak in the series, defeating UCF 80-73 on Senior Night last year. The Lady Tigers then went to Orlando and weathered a UCF comeback from 15 down with 17:28 to play to tie the game at 56-56 with 8:28 to play. The young Knights also knotted the game again at 66-66 with 2:45 to play before a pair of back-to-back threes from Paris Leonard and Jessica Hall helped Memphis escape with a 78-68 victory.
Best League Win Total in Four Years
Memphis' seven league victories is the Lady Tigers' best win-total since 2003-04's nine victories. Memphis is still in the hunt for a No. 5 seed at the C-USA Championships, but needs to win out the regular season to keep an opportunity for that fifth seed. With five league teams within one game of one another, the tiebreaker situation varies depending on if two and three or more teams are involved in a tie.
If two teams are tied, the first tie-breaker is head-to-head and the second tiebreaker is each team's record vs. the top teams in the league.
If three or more teams are tied, the tie-breaker is a mini pool-play with the best record within the pool emerging with the highest seed and then the two-team tiebreaker would be used when it was down to two teams left in the pool. The short version of that, Memphis has to beat UCF to have a shot at a No. 5 seed.
Some Pre-Season Pick!
The pre-season prognosticators were a little bit off when it came to assessing where the Lady Tigers would finish for the 2007-08 season. Memphis was picked to finish 12th in the league and is currently tied for fifth in the league standings heading in to the final league date.
Back Up Against One of the Nation's Best Rebounders
Freshman Tia Lewis from UCF is one of a talented core of players for first-year head coach Joi Williams. Lewis currently ranks fifth in the NCAA with 11.3 rebounds per game, while fellow freshman Emma Cannon ranks 59th in the country with 8.7 rebounds per game. Both also rank among the tops in the nation in double-doubles by a freshman. Lewis still averages a double-double with 12.1 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, while Cannon averages 11.2 points and 8.5 rebounds per game following the UAB contest.
Defense Holds Strong Against One of Nation's Top Offenses
Memphis held Southern Miss to just 60 points in the win 64-60 victory on Thursday night. Coming in to the game, USM ranked 33rd in the nation with an average of 73.1 ppg. That marked just the fourth time this season the Golden Eagles had been held to 60 or fewer points.
Leonard Knocks Down No. 100
With a three-point field goal with 11:36 remaining in the game, Paris Leonard not only tied up the game at 46-46, but had also knocked down her 100th career three-point field goal. With that triple, she is now just the sixth Lady Tiger in school history to pass the 100 career-three point mark. Former teammate Devin Necaise passed that mark last year as well.
Leonard Picks Up Second Career Double-Double
Paris Leonard scored 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for her second career double-double in the USM game. The 10 rebounds is her first double-digit rebounding night of the season and the first since she was a college freshman playing in her third-ever career game against Austin Peay. She tied a fieldhouse record with 10 offensive rebounds in that game, finishing with 13 boards and 26 points.
Jennings Playing Final Home Weekend
Senior Aroha Jennings will be playing her final regular season home game Saturday afternoon at the fieldhouse. In her two-year Lady Tiger career, Jennings has averaged 10.1 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. She will be playing her 60th career game Saturday afternoon and will likely be making her 41st career start. Jennings also has added 93 assists, 19 blocked shots and 66 steals in her short time at Memphis after transferring from Dodge City Community College following her sophomore season.
Winchell Ties Davis' Freshman Mark in Threes
Freshman Alex Winchell knocked down both threes she attempted on Thursday night to move in to a tie for seventh place on Memphis' freshman single-season records chart. Winchell is now tied with former teammate Alysse Davis' mark of 29 triples from last season with one regular season game and the conference tournament still to play. She would need three more triples to tie Kitty Allen's mark 32 from 1993-94 for fifth all-time. Winchell's 94 attempted triples currently ranks fourth all-time among the Memphis freshmen, two ahead of Davis' mark.
Jennings Approaching 600 Points
Senior Aroha Jennings is just seven points shy of the 600 point mark in the second year of her Memphis career following a 12 point night against USM. She also needs just nine more rebounds for 300 career rebounds heading in to the end of her Memphis playing days.
Bullard Rolling Toward 200th Career Point
Point guard Latoya Bullard is just 19 points shy of her 200th career point through 20 career games coming in to Saturday afternoon. Bullard is shooting 40.2 percent from the floor and is also just four rebounds shy of her 100th rebound in 20 games after wrangling up a career-high eight rebounds in the win over USM.
Splitting Conference Series
Memphis is still looking to sweep its first-ever conference weekend. To date, the Lady Tigers have split every conference weekend on the slate. Five times, Memphis has lost the first game of a conference weekend, only to bounce back to win the second game to salvage the split. On one weekend, Memphis won the first game, but dropped the second game (Tulane/UTEP).
A Fine February
February was not kind to Memphis at the early onset of the calendar, as Memphis was 1-2 through its first three games of the month, but the view has improved as of late, with the Lady Tigers capping the month of February with a 5-4 record.
Hall Moving in Single Season and Career Three-Point Categories
Jessica Hall knocked down 2-of-7 shots from beyond the arc against USM Thursday night. With those two triples, she has now hit 47 threes on the season and has 60 threes so far in her Memphis career (which spans 56 games). The 47 threes this season already ties her for seventh in the all-time single season category in the record book, tying her with LaTonya Johnson (1994-95) and Kelly Herron (1998-99).
Her 60 career threes ranks ninth in the career books, just 11 behind Lauren Jackson's (1998-2002) 71 career threes.
Leonard Pushing 900
Junior guard Paris Leonard will likely be Memphis' next 1,000 career point scorer, and she heads in to this weekend with 874 career points (26 shy of the 900 point mark).
First C-USA Series Sweep
With the win at East Carolina, Memphis swept its first two-game league series since 2003-04 when Memphis swept former-C-USA member Saint Louis, 69-65 and 69-60.
