PALO ALTO, Calif.– Despite being in two different conferences and playing two entirely different schedules, the No. 10-seed Lady Toppers and seven seeded Texas El-Paso have several commonalities between them.
Both Western and the Miners have their respective conferences players and coach of the year. Lady Topper coach Mary Taylor Cowles won her third coach of the year award while coaching her team to the top of the Sun Belt Conference’s East Division.
UTEP’s Keitha Adams was at the helm for the most successful season in the program’s history, which included a 23-game winning streak and the first postseason bid in the program’s history.
Senior forward Crystal Kelly owns most of the program’s records, including all-time leading scorer and rebounder, and earned the Sun Belt Conference player of the year honors for her performance this season.
So too did Miner guard Jareica Hughers win Conference USA’s player of the year award this season.
Another comparison that can be made to this team is their lack of experience in the NCAA tournament. Before this season, the Lady Toppers hadn’t made it to the tournament since 2003, before any of the seniors were attending school.
UTEP had never made a national postseason tournament in their program’s history before their at-large bid this year.
As such, none of the players on either squad have NCAA tournament experience except Miner guard Natasha Lacy. Lacy participated in three NCAA tournaments with Texas-Christian from 2004 to 2006, before transferring to UTEP.
“Her experience has been really good for us,” Adams said. “She is a tremendous player. Her experience is huge and a lot of these players have experienced similar big moments.”
Lacy, who is a native of El Paso, said that taking her hometown team to the NCAA tournament for the first time was one of her goals this season.
“Our goal coming into the year was to play in the postseason and I think we are just excited,” Lacy said. “I had three years of experience going into the NCAA tournament, but this is the most exciting year because of all the records that we have broken and making history in my hometown.”
Cowles said she expects it to be an up-tempo game.
“There are some similarities there with match-ups and styles of play.” Cowles said. “I definitely think it will be a game that goes up and down the floor. I think that we have to respect what each other brings to the floor.”
Two Lady Toppers that will be playing with added confidence is freshman forward Arnika Brown and sophomore guard Kenzie Rich.
Brown has only recently made an appearance in the starting lineup due to an injury to senior forward Charlotte Marshall in the last game of the regular season. She averaged 12.7 points a game over the conference tournament and was named to the All-Tournament team.
Rich had been struggling as of late, scoring more than 10 points only one time in the last seven regular season games. But in the last two rounds of the tournament she hit a combined 7-11 from beyond the three-point arc and was also named to the all-tournament team.
“That whole week before conference I was in the gym doing a lot of extra shooting and it showed when we went to the tournament, so hopefully that will carry over,” Rich said.
Kelly said that the Lady Toppers appearance in the tournament has really sunk in for her.
“I am so excited to be here and playing at this level with my teammates,” Kelly said. “It is just a really great opportunity for me to come out here and play against great competition and advance in this tournament.”
The Lady Toppers face the Miner at 10 p.m. at the Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, California.
Reach Chris Acree at sports@wkuherald.com.
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