College Women's Basketball Capsules: No. 2 Stanford beats UCLA 70-46 for Pac-10 title

LOS ANGELES — When UCLA coach Nikki Caldwell played at Tennessee, the Volunteers used to say they had to get to Stanford early in the season because the Cardinal was just too good later on.

That’s still the case.

Nnemkadi Ogwumike had 16 points and 10 rebounds, Jayne Appel added 15 points and No. 2 Stanford rolled to a 70-46 victory over 23rd-ranked UCLA on Sunday, winning its eighth Pac-10 tournament championship in nine title-game appearances.

"That’s a really nice compliment," Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer said about Caldwell’s comment. "Our team really improves. They play hard for each other and they develop more confidence."

The Cardinal (31-1) earned the league’s automatic berth to the NCAA tournament, where they’ll be appearing for the 23rd consecutive year. They lost to Connecticut in the national semifinals last year and to Tennessee in the championship game in 2008, last winning a national title in 1992.

"When it comes to tourney time, there is no excuse. We’re ready," said Appel, who had ice wrapped on both knees and her right ankle.

She started after coming off the bench in two previous games because of her sprained ankle. The senior center was named to her third all-tourney team.

Stanford became the first Pac-10 team to go undefeated in 18 regular-season games and win the league tourney title, even if the Cardinal looked sloppy at times with 15 turnovers.

"It’ll be really challenging to try to do this ever again," VanDerveer said, noting nine of her players are experienced upperclassmen.

Ogwumike became the fifth player to be named league player of the year and MVP of the tourney. She totaled 59 points in three games, tied for second-most.

Three-time all-tourney selection Kayla Pedersen added 12 points and 11 rebounds, and reserve Melanie Murphy had 10 points — eight over her average.

All-tourney selection Jasmine Dixon scored 20 points before fouling out with 5:18 remaining for the Bruins (24-8), who had their 10-game winning streak snapped in losing to Stanford for the third time this season and eighth overall.

"I don’t know why we came out so passive," she said. "Usually we’re aggressive and today I don’t think we were there mentally."

UCLA expects to land its first berth in the NCAA since 2006, when the Bruins lost in the second round.

"This team has earned anywhere from a 5-6 seed," Caldwell said. "Hopefully, more than a six."

The Bruins failed to convert off Stanford’s miscues.

"Our offense became very choppy and stagnant, and that hurt us," said Caldwell, the league’s coach of the year. "In the second half, we played a little bit more inspired, but against Stanford, you can’t pick 15 minutes here or there. They’re just too good."

VanDerveer, however, found enough she didn’t like about how her team played.

"We left some plays on the table," she said. "We didn’t finish some point-blank layups. We had rebounds and people took the ball out of our hands. We don’t have anyone breaking their arm patting themselves on the back."

Making its second appearance in the tournament final, UCLA had held its previous 35 opponents under 50 percent shooting, but Stanford bettered that in the first half alone.

The Cardinal shot 52 percent and scored 11 points off UCLA’s nine turnovers. The Bruins managed just two field goals over the final 6:33 and trailed 36-19 at the break.

"At times we were aggressive and when we were, we were disruptive, but there’s no room for passiveness when you’re gunning for a championship and we had very passive play," Caldwell said.

Appel scored eight points as Stanford opened the second half by outscoring the Bruins 20-16 to build a 56-35 lead, its largest until the final 1:42.

From there, the Bruins went on a 10-2 run, including four free throws by Dixon, to get to 58-45, the closest they came in the second half. UCLA lost its second starter after Rebekah Gardner fouled out with 9½ minutes remaining and the Bruins down by 16.

Stanford closed the game with eight unanswered points.

Liberty edges Gardner-Webb 68-66, takes Big South

HIGH POINT, N.C. — Liberty looked poised to end its string of close calls in the Big South championship game when it was up by 20 points with less than 10 minutes left.

Little did anyone know the Flames would need a redshirt freshman to hit the first game-winning shot of her career to continue their league dominance.

Devon Brown stopped Liberty’s second-half meltdown with a banked-in runner with 4 seconds left to snap a tie, and the Flames beat Gardner-Webb 68-66 on Sunday for its 13th Big South title in 14 years.

The second-seeded Flames’ 10th straight victory wasn’t secured until Monique Hudson missed a runner at the buzzer for the top-seeded Lady Bulldogs (28-4), who saw their 16-game winning streak snapped and their hopes for a first NCAA tournament berth squashed despite a remarkable comeback.

And it was eerily similar finish to last year, when Hudson’s sister Dominique missed a shot at the buzzer in Gardner-Webb’s 51-50 loss to Liberty in the title game. The year before, Liberty got a hoop in the closing seconds for a 66-65 win over Radford. Liberty’s 2006 title was a 53-50 victory over High Point.

"It’s what the championship games usually turn out to be, very close," said Liberty coach Carey Green, who improved to 30-1 in the Big South tournament. "That’s been the history the last several years, it’s been a two-point, a one-point. There’s not been too many blowouts in the last six or seven years."

Tournament MVP Brown had 24 points and eight rebounds for the Flames, who gave up an 18-0 run after leading 58-38.

"I knew were going to win the whole time," insisted guard Amber Mays, who fouled out late with eight points and eight of Liberty’s 26 turnovers.

Dominique Hudson scored 17 points and Margaret Roundtree and Monique Hudson added 13 apiece for Gardner-Webb in a bitter finish for coach Rick Reeves, who guided Liberty to its first three Big South crowns from 1997-99.

"I really wanted this for the Gardner-Webb community," Reeves said. "I wanted this championship as much as any championship I’ve ever won and been a part of."

Brown prevented that with two key buckets in the closing seconds.

She stepped between two defenders, lunged forward and banked in a shot as she was falling down in the lane to put Liberty ahead 66-64 with 32 seconds left. But Courtney Epps’ driving layup with 12.7 seconds left tied it.

After a timeout, Brown drove down the right side of the floor and her leaner kissed in off the glass.

"Not at all," Brown said when asked if she had game-winning shot experience from high school in Waynesboro, Va. "This is the first."

Gardner-Webb was out of timeouts and Monique Hudson dribbled the length of the floor. Her shot from the right of the lane went off the glass and rim before falling out, and Liberty’s players mobbed Brown.

"The play was to give her the ball," Green said. "They changed up defenses and she did exactly where we wanted her to go with it. She made a big shot."

Early on, it didn’t look like there would be any suspense — or any chance for Reeves to beat his former team.

Reeves left the Lynchburg, Va., school for Southern Mississippi in 1999. He resigned with a losing record after five seasons and moved to Gardner-Webb, inheriting a 5-22 team in 2004.

The Boiling Springs, N.C., school left the Atlantic Sun for the Big South last year, and made a surprising run to the 2009 final.

The Lady Bulldogs seemed poised to unseat Liberty this year. They pulled out two close victories over the Flames during the regular season and tied a conference record for wins.

But Gardner-Webb was quickly overwhelmed.

Roundtree, the league’s player of the year, was bottled up by Liberty’s defense when she wasn’t missing layups in a miserable 3-for-13 first-half performance. Dominique Hudson, a fellow all-conference pick, had three fouls before the game was 12 minutes old. Epps picked up a technical foul and fellow starter LaTroya Pope had to leave briefly after taking a hard fall.

Liberty shot 65 percent in the first half before Gardner-Webb started getting hot.

Dominique Hudson’s twisting layup and free throw with 2:32 left gave Gardner-Webb its first lead of the game. But the Flames still improved to 13-0 in Big South title games.

"We’re very blessed," Green said. "We’re fortunate."

-- Mike Cranston

Hodges leads Saint Francis to NEC title

NEW YORK — Britney Hodges and her Saint Francis teammates watched film of last season’s loss in the NEC championship game, and were determined not to let it happen again.

Hodges scored 23 points and Samantha Leach added 20 to help Saint Francis, Pa., beat Long Island 77-68 on Sunday in the Northeast Conference title game.

"It motivated us a lot," Hodges said. "Before we got here on the way up we watched it on the bus. We weren’t going to let that happen."

The Red Flash (17-14) won the league’s automatic NCAA tournament bid for the first time since 2005. Saint Francis had won nine conference titles from 1995-2005 and, as the No. 5 seed, became the lowest to win the championship.

Saint Francis has won 32 of its last 33 games in the NEC tournament. The lone loss came last season in the title game against Sacred Heart.

Ashley Palmer scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while Chelsi Johnson added 17 points for LIU (22-10), which was making its fourth appearance in the NEC title game. The Blackbirds, who last played in the championship game two years ago, have only won once back in 2001.

LIU completed a remarkable turnaround after winning nine games last season. The Blackbirds only lose two players to graduation.

"It means a lot for the turnaround we had from last year to this year," Johnson said. "Last year no one thought we would have gotten here. Today’s game doesn’t define the season we had."

Leading 31-29 at the half, Saint Francis scored 10 of the first 13 points to take a 41-32 advantage 4 minutes in. The Blackbird closed to six on Kiara Evans’ three-point play, but the Red Flash scored the next 10 points — including five by Hodges — to make it 55-39.

Saint Francis led 58-43 before LIU made one last run.

Heidi Mothershead, who missed her first 10 shots, hit a layup to start the spurt. Evans followed with a three-point play and Palmer added a jumper that made it 58-50 with 7:29 left.

That’s as close as the Blackbirds would get.

Brittany Lilley hit a layup and Leach followed with a jumper to restore the double digit lead. Lilley finished with 15 points.

"Brittney Lilley coming off the bench was a big thing for us," Susan Robinson-Fruchtl said. "‘B’ can be a game changer for us and she had a great mentality for today."

The first half was a back-and-forth contest with neither team gaining more than a six-point lead. Hodges had 16 points in the first half, scoring at will.

The Red Flash led 25-19 on Leach’s pull-up with 7:10 left in the half before the Blackbirds scored eight straight to take a 27-25 lead. Saint Francis led 31-29 at the half.

"Holding them under 30 points was a key to us on the road," Robinson-Fruchtl said. "I knew we could wear them down by the end of the game."

Leach became the 18th Saint Francis player to reach 1,000 points when she hit a layup early in the game. The team presented her with a ball at an early media timeout.

Saint Francis swept both regular season meetings between the teams.

LIU advanced to the title game with victories over Quinnipiac and Central Connecticut. Saint Francis beat Monmouth and top-seeded Robert Morris to get to the championship.

-- Doug Feinberg

Cleveland State wins Horizon League title

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Cleveland State star Kailey Klein has scored in double figures 99 times during her brilliant career.

She’ll have a chance to make it an even 100 in the NCAA tournament.

Klein scored 23 points and Cleveland State beat Butler 66-57 on Sunday to win the Horizon League tournament and earn its second NCAA berth in the last three years.

"I don’t really look to the personal goals as much as if we were to win a first-round NCAA tournament game," said Klein, one of four senior starters who joined the program following a 4-25 season. "That’s way more important that 100 double-figure scoring nights.

"If I can do both," she added, "that would be great."

Cleveland State (19-13) led by as many as 15 points in the second half before Alyssa Pittman began to rally Butler. She hit a trio of 3-pointer to trim the deficit to 47-41, and Melanie Thornton’s deflection led to a fastbreak layup by Terra Burns to make it a four-point game.

Angel Roque answered with a 3-pointer from the wing, and a steal and coast-to-coast layup by Shawnita Garland gave the Vikings some breathing room.

"We could have got beat by 30 tonight," Butler coach Beth Couture said.

Pittman finished with 18 points for Butler (23-9), which was seeking its first conference tournament title since 1996. Thornton, the league’s player of the year, had 16.

"She was huge," Couture said of Pittman, who provided her spark off the bench. "When she started shooting 3s, we could get Mel inside because, all of a sudden, you have to play everybody. When we weren’t hitting 3s in the first half, they just stayed right in the paint. That’s exactly how I’d play us."

Cleveland State led 30-20 at halftime by holding the Bulldogs to 26.9 percent shooting, including 1 of 8 from 3-point range. The Vikings also forced 10 turnovers.

"I think maybe the first 20 possessions, we saw all of the same plays that we had gone over," Cleveland State coach Peterson Abiad said. "I thought that we recognized them right away and defend them exactly the way we talked about."

It was a disappointing end to what has been a charmed season for Butler.

Couture was diagnosed with breast cancer in April and endured 16 weeks of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation treatment — the last of which came just days before the season-opener against Kentucky. The Bulldogs wear pink shows as a tribute to their coach.

"It would have been a story, I’m sure," Couture said. "The story for me would have been, we got back to the tournament for the second time in our history. That would have been the story. For what these kids have done this year with my story, they made it easy for me to coach."

James Madison beat Old Dominion for CAA title

HARRISONBURG, Va. — Dawn Evans scored 25 points and James Madison beat Old Dominion 67-53 Sunday to win the Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship.

The Dukes (26-6) won the league’s automatic NCAA tournament bid for the first time since 1989, and ended a streak of seven losing trips to the title game since then.

Old Dominion (18-13), which had its NCAA-record streak of 17 consecutive tournament titles end last season with a loss to Drexel in the semifinals, trailed most of the game. The Lady Monarchs closed within five with 7:24 remaining, but got no closer.

Lauren Jimenez added 13 points and eight rebounds for James Madison.

Jasmine Parker led Old Dominion with 15 points and Tia Lewis had 11.

Evans, who also had seven assists, finished off what may have been the decisive play of the game. Lewis had rebounded her own miss and was preparing to shoot again when the Dukes’ Nikki Newman ripped the ball from her hands and sent Evans in for a layup to make it 60-49.

Only moments before, Old Dominion had finished a 17-3 burst featuring seven points by Lewis and six by Parker, turning a 19-point deficit into a crowd-quieting 54-49 game.

Evans’ breakaway basket capped a 6-0 spurt for the Dukes that settled them down, and Old Dominion was forced to rush its shots the rest of the way as it sought quick points.

The Lady Monarchs shot under 34 percent and missed 9 of their 17 free throw tries.

Earlier, consecutive baskets by Tarik Hislop and Evans gave the Dukes a 51-32 lead with 12:55 to play, and James Madison seemed poised to put the game away in front of its crowd.

But a driving bucket by Parker and Lewis’ putback sparked the 5-minute run for the Lady Monarchs, and James Madison helped out by missing several shots from in close. Jimenez ended the drought by scoring inside and adding two free throws before Newman’s critical steal.

The Dukes led 43-29 at halftime after closing with a 9-3 burst. Evans started it with a 25-foot 3-pointer, and finished it with consecutive feeds to Jimenez inside.

James Madison scored 14 points in a row after an opening 3-pointer by Parker for the Lady Monarchs. Old Dominion missed its next 11 shots after the 3 with three turnovers.

Old Dominion closed to 16-11, but back-to-back 3s by Evans started a 10-2 run for the hosts.

-- Hank kurz Jr.

Boeck’s free throws send Northern Iowa to NCAAs

ST. CHARLES, Mo. — After losing nine of its first 13 games, the Northern Iowa women’s basketball team didn’t panic.

"We stuck with our body of work," coach Tanya Warren said. "We never lost sight of our vision."

That vision became a realization Sunday, when the Panthers used a pair of free throws from Lizzie Boeck with 7 seconds left to knock off Creighton 54-53 in the championship game of the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

Northern Iowa (17-15) advances to the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

Boeck, who was chosen the tournament MVP, had a game-high 19 points. She scored the last seven points of the contest to lead her team on a 9-0 run over the final 7:46. Nicole Clausen added 10 points for the fifth-seeded Panthers, who have won four in a row.

Megan Neuvirth and Chevelle Herring scored 13 points each for second-seeded Creighton (20-10).

Boeck had 53 points, 24 rebounds and 11 assists over the three games of the tournament. She hit on 20 of 35 shots from the field. She also sank 12 of 15 free throws and swished both foul shots in the closing seconds of the title tilt.

"Lizzie is as calm an individual as I’ve ever been around," Warren said. "She likes that pressure."

Boeck took charge down the stretch. Her short jumper with 2:07 left brought the Panthers to within 53-52 and set the stage for the finish.

Creighton took its biggest lead of the game on a driving layup by Neuvirth with 7:46 left, but the Bluejays missed their final eight shots and committed six turnovers the rest of the way.

"We always say defense wins championship," Clausen said. "Well, there it is."

The Panthers struggled the first six weeks of the season and dropped to 4-9 after a 90-80 loss at Missouri State on Jan. 2. As one of the team leaders, Boeck felt the responsibility of turning the season around.

"We knew we had the potential," she said. "We believed in ourselves and coaches."

The Panthers, who joined the conference in 1991, put together a six-game winning streak beginning Jan. 30. They lost three of their last four regular-season games before coming alive in the tournament. Northern Iowa beat Bradley 70-50 in the quarterfinals and stunned top-seeded Illinois State 61-59 in the semifinals.

Northern Iowa is the first Missouri Valley school to advance both its women’s and men’s team to the NCAA tournament since Creighton in 2002.

The Bluejays were upset in the championship game for the second year in a row. Last season, they dropped a 47-45 decision to ninth-seeded Evansville in the title game.

"It hurts, it really hurts, we fell short twice," said Herring, who was chosen to the five-player all-tournament team. "I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t feel good."