Green and Gold Eye Sixth-Straight Win at Middle Tennessee

NORFOLK, Va. – After opening the Conference USA season with a big road victory over Old Dominion on Thursday, the UAB women's basketball team looks for its sixth-straight win on Saturday as it travels to Murfreesboro to take on Middle Tennessee at 6 p.m. CST.

The Blazers (12-2, 1-0) are currently riding their first five-game winning streak since the 2015-16 season (12/03-12/21) and are seeking to win back-to-back conference road games for the first time since defeating FAU (03/02/17) and FIU (03/04/17) to close out the 2016-17 season.

"Winning on the road at Old Dominion was a great start to C-USA play," head coach Randy Norton said. "Middle Tennessee is always a very tough environment to play in and we are expecting that again for the game on Saturday. As always, our focus will be to play UAB basketball and play to the best of our ability."

Thursday's game against Old Dominion could not have gone any better for UAB as the team toppled the Monarchs 74-61 to earn its first C-USA road opener since taking down Marshall 63-57 on 01/11/2014.

Sophomore Miyah Barnes was the ring leader of the Blazers' potent offensive attack, posting a career-high 24 points and matching a career high with nine assists. Fellow sophomore Trista Magee also had a career game, tallying 16 points off the bench, while Rachael Childress and Deanna Kuzmanic added 11 points and 10 points, respectively.

As a team, UAB shot 50 percent (10-for-20) from 3-point land against Old Dominion, improving its season 3-point field goal percentage to 42.2 percent, the best in C-USA and third in the NCAA. Barnes' nine assists made up more than half of the Blazers' 17 total assists in the game as the team continues to be the most unselfish programs in the conference.

UAB will have its hands full as it heads into Murfreesboro as it will face one of the perennial powers of C-USA women's basketball in Middle Tennessee.

The Blue Raiders (8-6, 0-1) are coming off a 57-43 road setback at WKU despite 11 points from senior Abbey Sissom. Sissom has been the catalyst for Middle Tennessee's offense as she is averaging a team-high 14.3 points per game and dishing out 2.8 assists per game. Jess Louro is the second-highest scorer on the team (9.3 ppg) and is averaging a team-best 6.3 rebounds per contest.

Middle Tennessee leads the all-time series between the two programs, 10-5, and have won the last four games in the series. UAB's last win against the Blue Raiders came on Feb. 28, 2015, when the Blazers emerged from Murfreesboro with a 76-68 victory.

For more information on the UAB women's basketball team follow the Blazers on Twitter (@UAB_WBB), Instagram (UAB_WBBALL) or like them on Facebook (Facebook.com/UABWBB).

Green and Gold Eye Sixth-Straight Win at Middle Tennessee

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Players Mentioned

Miyah Barnes

Rachael Childress

Deanna Kuzmanic

Trista Magee

The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics