RICHARDSON, TX (02.25.14) - With the 2014 American Southwestern Conference basketball tournaments opening Friday afternoon, the UT Dallas women's basketball team is poised to defend its conference title from a year ago.
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The Comets (20-5) will serve as the No. 2 seed in this year's event, host by Texas-Tyler, and open play Friday at 2:30 p.m. against seventh-seeded Concordia Texas (11-14) at the Louise Herrington Patriot Center in Tyler. UTD is appearing in its eighth straight ASC Tournament and will be looking to advance to at least the semifinals of the event for the fourth consecutive season.
Daily ticket prices are $5 for adults and $3 for students, including students from participating schools. Children 12 years and uder will be admitted free. No all-tournament passes will be sold. For parking information, click
here.
UTD is 5-6 all-time in seven previous trips to the conference tournament, winning the program's only league crown last spring with a 67-63 win over Louisiana College in the Comets' only trip to the ASC title game. UTD has faced Concordia Texas just once prior in the ASC Tournament, a loss to the Tornados in the 2012 semifinals. The Comets are 7-9 all-time against CTX, including a pair of wins this season.
Eighth-year head coach
Polly Thomason has guided the Comets to their fifth 20-win season the last six seasons and enters the postseason one win shy of matching the program record for victories. The 2008-09 and 2010-11 teams each finished the season with 21 wins.
UTD opened the season with five straight wins before suffering its first loss, setting the tone for one of the most successful seasons in program history. The Comets rolled off another five-game winning streak before collecting loss No. 2 and have not lost back-to-back games all season, a first since the 2008-09 campaign.
The Comets have already set two school records this season and project to break many more before the close of the year. UTD has broken the program's record for three-pointers made (156) and free-throws made (455). The Comets are also on pace to break the school records for points, points per game, scoring margin, field goals made, field goal percentage, three-point percentage, free-throw percentage and assists.
Senior forward
Morgan Kilgore has led the way for the Comets this season and is on pace to set the program's single-season scoring record (470, Tarneisha Scott, 2010-11) with a decent run in the postseason by UTD. Kilgore has 445 points on the year and has the potential to post first 500-point season in the program's 16-year history. In just two seasons with the program, Kilgore has already moved into fifth place on the Comets' scoring list and could climb as high as third.
Kilgore is averaging 17.8 points per game, which would be a school record, and leads three players in double digit scoring on the season. Junior guard
Jo'Anna Davis is second on the squad with 12.1 points per outing while junior guard
Christina Brosnahan is third with 11.4 points per contest. Kilgore also leads the Comets with 6.6 rebounds per game. Junior guard
Madi Hess is averaging a team-best 3.7 assists per game.
As a team, the Comets lead the ASC in both free-throw percentage (78.2%) and three-point percentage (37.5%), ranking in the top five in NCAA Division III in both categories. UTD is third in the league in field goal percentage (43.9%) and fourth in points per game (74.7%). The Comets' scoring margin of 11.6 points per outing is second best in the ASC. UTD is out-rebounding opponents by 5.2 boards per game, the third-largest margin in the league, while ranking fifth in assists per game (15.3) and seventh in both steals (8.2) and blocks (3.0) per game.
Texas-Tyler (22-3) won the ASC regular season title and will host the league tournament for the first time since 2008. UTT will face No. 8-seed LeTourneau (11-14) at 7:30 p.m. Friday. In other first-round action on Friday, No. 3-seeded Mary Hardin-Baylor (16-9) will face sixth-seeded Ozarks (10-15) at 12 p.m. and No. 4-seeded Howard Payne (16-9) will play fifth-seeded Louisiana College (15-10) at 5 p.m. Saturday's semifinals are scheduled for 1 and 3 p.m. with Sunday's title game slated for 2 p.m. The winner of the ASC Tournament will receive an automatic berth into NCAA D-III National Tournament.
