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Belton, TX – The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor women's basketball team will return to the American Southwest Conference Championship Tournament after a one-year absence when the 2012-13 tournament opens Friday in Brownwood. The UMHB women will be making their ninth overall ASC Tournament appearance and the Cru has advanced to at least the second round in five of those previous eight trips to the ASC Tournament. The UMHB women will be the #4 seed from the ASC West Division.
The UMHB women will enter the tournament with an 8-16 overall record and the Cru women went 7-12 in ASC play. The Cru women won six of their last nine games to clinch the tournament berth. UMHB will open the tournament with a 12:00 PM first-round game against ASC East Division champion Louisiana College (22-3). The winner of that game will move into a 2:00 semifinal game on Saturday against the winner of the U.T.-Tyler (17-8, East Division #3 seed) vs. Concordia Texas (17-8, West Division #2 seed) first-round game. The other side of the bracket will see Hardin-Simmons University (13-12, West Division #3 seed) taking on U.T.-Dallas (17-8, East Division #2 seed) at 5:00 on Friday and East Texas Baptist University (16-9, East Division #4 seed) facing West Division champion and tournament host Howard Payne University (21-4) at 7:30 PM. The second semifinal game will be played at 4:30 PM on Saturday with the two semifinal winners meeting in the ASC Championship game at 2:00 PM on Sunday. The ASC Tournament champion will receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III National Championships.
UMHB fell to the Wildcats 100-50 in the regular season meeting between the two teams in Pineville, Louisiana on December 10
th. The Cru women shot just 24 percent from the field and turned the ball over 50 times in that loss.
Jovana Miles led UMHB with 11 points and 13 rebounds in that game.
The Cru has been led by the inside presence of Miles (10.4 points and 10.0 rebounds per game) and
Taylor Tucker (17.0 points and 11.1 rebounds per game) this season. UMHB is out rebounding opponents by an average of a little more than ten rebounds per game.
Samara Williams,
Macy Moore and
Kourtney Bevers all average 7.2 points or more on the year and Moore leads the team with 62 assists. Williams has a team-high 34 steals.
The Cru women are 1-9 against the rest of the ASC Tournament field this season. UMHB's only regular season win against a team in the ASC Tournament field came in an 88-84 double overtime victory at Concordia Texas.
The UMHB women advanced to the ASC Tournament championship game in 2006 and 2001. The Cru women have beaten the ASC East Division champion in the opening round three times in the last seven years.
All of the ASC Tournament games will be played at the Brownwood Coliseum in Brownwood, Texas. Tickets are $6 for adults and $3 for students each day. There are no tournament passes and there are no complimentary tickets for ASC Championship events. Howard Payne University will also provide free video steaming and live statistics for all ASC Women's Basketball Tournament games through the HPU athletic department web site (
www.hpusports.com) or on the ASC's Tournament Central Page available at
www.ascsports.org.
