The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB Riding Three-Game Win Streak Into C-USA Tournament
3/10/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
By Steve Irvine, UABsports.com
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Bartow Arena numbers are comforting for the UAB women's basketball team heading into the Conference USA Women's Basketball Championships. Seven consecutive C-USA wins in the building with an average margin of 13 points in those game. Overall, the Blazers are 11-3 at home with the most recent loss coming on Jan. 15. UAB's only two C-USA home losses came to Middle Tennessee and Louisiana Tech and the Blazers avenged both of those losses on the road.
The bottom line is the Blazers are very successful at Bartow Arena, which is the host site for the first two rounds of the conference tournament.
"It's wonderful," said senior forward Janae Smith. "I love our home court. I couldn't ask for anything better."
The sixth-seed Blazers (17-12 overall, 11-7 C-USA) are only guaranteed one game this week and that tips off at 11 a.m. on Wednesday against No. 11 seed UTEP (12-15, 7-11). The teams played at Bartow Arena on Jan. 29 with UAB beating the Miners, 67-52. The winner of the rematch advances to play No. 3 seed Southern Miss (20-9, 13-5) on Thursday at 11 a.m. at Bartow Arena with the final two days of the tournament moving to Legacy Arena at the BJCC.
While UAB head coach Randy Norton is happy his team is playing at home, he said the concentration now is on getting ready to play UTEP. In other words, now it's all about matchups and strategy and executing a game plan.
"Same thing we've talked about from the beginning of the year," Norton said. "We take one game at a time, get rid of all the outside distractions, focus on the things we can control - our effort, energy, fight. Our motto is `To play hard, play smart, play together and have fun.' I feel like they've bought into that. We're just going to focus on the process, we'll give them a great scout on how we want to defend them and then it's all about us. We feel like if we play the way we're capable, we can beat anybody in our league."
UAB lost its only meeting with C-USA champion Western Kentucky, dropping a 59-51 decision on the road, but the Blazers do have wins against each of the other top four seeds. UAB split games with No. 2 Middle Tennessee and Southern Miss and beat No. 4 seed UTSA, 73-57, at Bartow Arena. The Blazers tied with UTSA and Old Dominion for fourth place but dropped to the No. 6 seed because of tiebreakers.
It's been a big week for senior forward Janae Smith. The 6-foot-2 senior, who transferred to UAB from Illinois State to finish her final season of college eligibility, was selected as the C-USA Player of the Week after averaging 27 points in wins over Florida Atlantic and Florida International last weekend. She ended the regular season with a career-high 36 points in the victory over FIU. Smith was also selected to the All-Conference USA first team, which was released on Sunday.
While Smith, who averages 18.5 points, 7.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.4 blocked shots and steals per game, is the first option on offense, the strength of the Blazers has been consistency throughout the lineup. Junior Chelsee Black is the only other double figure scorer at 12.3 points per game and also has a team-best 65 assists. Black, who has 47 3-pointers, and senior Miranda Burroughs are threats from long range. Burroughs is second in C-USA with 68 3-pointers and the conference leader in 3-point percentage at 42.2 percent.
Those three are the scoring leaders but the Blazers have also received solid play from several others. Juniors Kayla Anderson and Brittany Winborne give Smith help inside and Anderson is one of the top defenders in the conference. Sophomore Janeka Williams, who is excellent at driving to the basket, started all 18 C-USA games.
