It's always tough to bounce back from a home loss to a conference opponent. After a heartbreaking loss to Southern Miss, the University of Memphis women's basketball team shifted their focus to the Central Florida Knights and prevailed 65-57 at the FedEx Forum Saturday.
As the basketball season progresses and teams look to strengthen their resumes, wins become harder to obtain. The Knights proved to be no different, fighting tooth and nail with the Tigers for the duration of the game.
Junior forward Nicole Dickson opened up the scoring at the 18:08 mark with a jumper. A minute later, she hit a three-pointer off a feed from sophomore guard Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir to put the Tigers up 5-2.
"In conference play you always have to come out and be ready," Dickson said. "Every night it is anybody's game, so both teams have to come out and play hard and tonight we played really hard out there."
Senior guard Brittany Carter provided a scoring punch off the bench after sitting out the last game with an ankle injury. She scored six points in the first half and finished the game with ten.
Abdul-Qaadir and Dickson combined to score 18 of the Tigers' 29 first half points, and they went into halftime with a 29-27 lead.
The Tigers got some breathing room at the beginning of the second half when senior guard Ramses Lonlack used defense to spark an 11-1 run, despite only scoring seven points in the game.
"When Ramses Lonlack plays defense the way she does, it energizes our team," head coach Melissa McFerrin said.
The Knights did not fold under the pressure, outscoring the Tigers 10-5 over the next five minutes to narrow the gap to 49-44 with 6:24 left in the game.
After a UCF layup cut the lead to three, Dickson nailed a key jumper and a three-pointer in under a minute to extend the Tigers' lead back to eight. It was smooth sailing from there as Memphis captured its seventh Conference USA victory of the season to move to 17-5 (7-2 C-USA) overall.
Dickson led the Tigers in scoring with 17 points, eight rebounds and three blocks. Abdul-Qaadir matched her season high with 13 points and Lonlack added four steals, four assists and five rebounds to go along with her seven points.
The Tigers take on SMU Thursday night in Dallas. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
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