Middle Tennessee Outlasts UALR In Sun Belt Women’s Final

HOT SPRINGS — Middle Tennessee’s departure after from the Sun Belt Conference later this year is a big loss for basketball fans in this region. No longer will they have a thrilling Middle Tennessee-UALR women’s tourney championship game to enjoy.

Maybe the two opposing coaches can keep up the good times as a nonconference rivalry.

The four Sun Belt title games in Hot Springs over the past five years have all been classics between the two teams — only in 2011 did Middle failed to make it to the title game with UALR. Monday’s championship lived up to the expectations of another tight, hard-fought contest with the Blue Raiders taking home a parting gift from the conference — a title achieved by dominating the last 3 minutes.

Middle’s 53-48 win assured the Blue Raiders of an automatic NCAA Women’s Tournament berth, while it likely meant UALR’s postseason will be spent in the Women’s NIT.

“What a game,” Middle Tennessee coach Rick Insell said. “It seems like every time Little Rock and Middle Tennessee match up, we have a game like that. Just a battle of minds, of physicality, and the one that is able to endure those runs is the winner. Our kids were able to endure a couple of runs they had, and we had a seven-minute break in there where they didn’t score.”

Both teams entered the game with 24-7 records. Insell credited a demanding early schedule with giving his team the mental toughness it required down the stretch to put away Florida International on Sunday and UALR on Monday.

Until Middle Tennessee’s veterans took over defensively down the stretch, though, it looked like UALR might be headed to its fourth straight NCAA appearance. Then the Trojans couldn’t score a point from the 3:03 mark of the second half until the final seconds when Kiera Clark made a meaningless layup to end a 9-0 Middle Tennessee run.

The experienced Blue Raiders bookended the game with runs — an 8-0 start and a 9-2 finish. UALR’s young Trojans — with a freshman, two juniors and two sophomores starting — played older than their years for the 32 minutes in between.

UALR, in fact, had its largest lead at 40-33 with 12:01 to play, then scored six more points over the next 12 minutes. The Trojans went seven minutes, from 10:06 to 3:07, without scoring. By then, sophomore guard Taylor Gault had found a rare open shot, a 12-footer, to re-tie the game at 44.

Clark gave UALR its last lead, 46-44, with 2:43 to play on a layup.

Middle Tennessee kept feeding junior Eboni Rowe inside — usually she was fouled, and she hit 12 of 15 foul shots — and all the defensive attention by UALR on Rowe and Middle’s senior guard, Kortni Jones, allowed Shanice Cason to break free for a layup with 1:48 left, giving the Blue Raiders the lead for good.

“Again, a typical game, Middle and us,” UALR Coach Joe Foley said. “Great defense battle. Both teams played extremely hard. It came down to them being able to get it inside, get fouled, and get to the free throw line. They beat us at the free-throw line.”

Middle Tennessee’s last six points came from the foul line. The Blue Raiders, drawing 20 UALR fouls, hit 17 of 25 free throws. UALR was fouled just nine times and was 5 of 7 from the foul line.

Some of that foul discrepancy was a result of UALR’s inability to get the ball inside in the second half, particularly when freshman Shanity James sat with foul trouble for 11 minutes and the Trojans mostly settled for contested outside shots. Gault and point guard Taylor Ford were a combined 8 of 35 shooting and just 1 of 8 on 3-pointers.

“I think we stopped doing what got us the lead, which was driving,” James said. “We stopped moving and we were standing still.”

Rowe, meanwhile, had 20 points for Middle Tennessee. Jones, the tournament’s most valuable player, had 15 points on 6 of 18 shooting.

Rowe said, “Coach tells me all the time when I’m getting to the free throw line I’m being aggressive. I was just attacking and knew I had to put those [free throws] in for my team.”

Reserves Cason and Laken Leonard, who had a tying 3-pointer to even the game at 42, hit the huge shots late for the Blue Raiders.

“People think, if I triple team Eboni Rowe I’m going to win,” Rowe said. “It doesn’t matter. We have so many people to step up and make plays. When they do it frees me up to go to work … That’s why I’ve been saying all year we had a dangerous team. We play well together.”

Foley was left with much to look forward to next year. James may have been the best player on the court Monday when she wasn’t sitting with foul trouble, and the freshman led UALR with 14 points. Sophomore Clark had 11 points and 17 rebounds. Gault, last year’s Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, had 13 points but her shooting touch didn’t resemble last year’s. It took her 23 shots to get 13 points.

What UALR lacked, especially late, was the inside presence of last year’s senior leader, Marian Kursh that might have opened up the perimeter for Gault and Ford, who won last year’s title game against Middle with a running jumper in the lane.

“I told the kids [before the season], as young as we are, if you play in the championship game, you’ve done well,” said Foley, whose team endured six losses in seven games to then win 13 in a row. “When you’re playing freshmen and sophomores and they’re playing seniors … I’m proud of where we are.

“It didn’t exceed but it met what I thought we could do. I set pretty high goals.”