TCU
Marquette
TCU Lady Frogs Secure Outright C-USA Championship
2/24/2002 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 24, 2002
FORT WORTH, Texas - The TCU Lady Frogs (22-5, 12-2 C-USA) made sure that they would be the sole owners of the Conference USA regular-season title by rolling to a 72-57 victory over Marquette (14-13, 7-7 C-USA) on Sunday afternoon at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum. TCU finished one game ahead of Cincinnati and two games in front of Houston in the final league standings.
TCU was hot from the start, hitting 3-of-4 three-point attempts in the first 4:22. The Lady Frogs had a 10-point advantage (25-15) in the early going, but the Golden Eagles went on a 12-2 run to get back to even at 27-27 with 4:02 left. A mini-run for TCU made the halftime score 34-28 in favor of the Lady Frogs.
The second half was dominated by TCU, who took a double-digit lead with 12:33 remaining and held that for the rest of the contest. The Lady Frogs led by as many as 23 before settling for a 15-point victory.
Tiffany Evans led the Frogs in scoring with 16. She had a perfect day from the field (3-for-3) and was 9-of-10 on free throws. Kati Safaritova added 12 points and Ebony Shaw notched 11. Sandora Irvin had a game-high 11 rebounds. The Lady Frogs connected on 8-of-19 three-pointers on the afternoon, while Marquette managed to go just 2-for-16 from behind the arc.
TCU closed out the home slate with a school-best 15-2 home record, bettering last year's 13-3 mark in Fort Worth. It was the final Daniel-Meyer appearance for a trio of seniors: Safaritova, Ashanti Nix and Quinn Tedder. The Lady Frogs have now won four straight and eight of their last nine games overall.
TCU, the number one seed in the Conference USA Tournament, will receive a first-round bye and will open the tourney on March 2 in Chicago, Ill. No game time or opponent has been set at this time.
