FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Masseny Kaba scored a career-high 23 points, Brittney Smith had her sixth career double-double and UCF celebrated its first Top 25 ranking with an 69-54 win over Tulsa in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament on Tuesday.
The top-seeded Knights (23-3), who moved into the AP rankings at 25 on Monday, ran their winning streak to 11, the last two coming over the eighth-seeded Golden Hurricanes after a 61-48 win to close the regular season. They play the winner of fifth-seeded SMU and fourth-seeded Temple in the semifinals on Friday.
Smith, the league sixth woman of the year who had 19 points and 11 rebounds, came off the bench to score nine points in the third quarter when UCF took charge. Tulsa hit a pair of 3-pointers and scored the first eight points of the second half to take a 32-30 lead but the Knights answered with six-straight points and closed the quarter with seven straight to lead 55-42. Smith was 5 of 6 from the foul line, helping put Tulsa in foul trouble.
Kaba had 17 points and Smith 13 in the second half. Diamond Battles added 11 points and Alisha Lewis had 10 points and eight assists. Tay Sanders grabbed 10 rebounds for the Knights, who dominated the boards 50-20 with a whopping 25 offensive rebounds, good for 14 second-chance points. However the Knights were just 12 of 20 from the foul line.
Wyvette Mayberry scored 13 points for Tulsa (16-10) while freshman of the year Temira Poindexter had 12 on four 3-pointers in 19 minutes before fouling out. Maddie Bittle added 11 points.
Tulsa knocked down 12 3-pointers on 34 attempts and was 7 of 15 inside the arc. The Golden Hurricanes, who had 19 turnovers, were just 4 of 4 from the line.
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More AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
