March 2, 2008

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - With a 78-74 win over Houston on Saturday, the Marshall women's basketball team clinched the No. 6 seed in this week's Conference USA Tournament and will face No. 11 seed Tulane in Thursday's opening round of the tournament.

The Thundering Herd and the Green Wave are scheduled to tip off Thursday at 2:30 p.m. at the UCF Arena on the campus of the University of Central Florida.

Marshall (15-15, 7-9 C-USA) has never defeated Tulane (16-13, 6-10 C-USA), who owns a 3-0 advantage in the series. Earlier this season, the Green Wave came away with a 61-56 win over the Herd in New Orleans. Tulane was led by a 13-point performance from Tiffany Aidoo while Alyssa Hammond led the Herd with a game-high 14 points.

Casey Baker and Kizzy Hart were the stars in Marshall's win at Houston on Saturday. Both notched career highs in scoring, led by 28 from Baker and 27 by Hart. Baker also finished with six assists, five steals and five rebounds while Hart continued her hot hand in games in the state of Texas. In four Texas games, Hart has averaged 24.3 points per game.

Tulane is led by 11.6 points per game from Ashley Langford and 10.0 PPG from Brittany Lindsey. Langford finished the regular season as the No. 3 free throw shooter in the league, hitting 84.6% of her shots from the charity stripe.

Thursday's other opening round games include No. 7 Memphis against No. 10 Tulsa at 12 p.m., No. 5 Southern Miss going against No. 12 UCF at 5:30 p.m. and No. 8 East Carolina and No. 9 Rice closing out the action with an 8 p.m. tipoff.

The winner of the tilt between Marshall and Tulane will be pitted against UAB, who is the third seed, in the second round of the tournament. UTEP, who finished a perfect 16-0 in conference play, is the top seed while SMU is the two seed and Houston is the No. 4 seed.

Friday's winners will square off in the semifinals on Saturday at 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. with the victors advancing to Sunday's championship game. The semifinal games will be televised on CSTV while ESPN2 will broadcast Sunday's championship game.

This will mark the third tournament for the Thundering Herd, who is 0-2 in its first two attempts. In 2006, Kristin Chaney hit a shot at the buzzer to give Southern Miss a 60-58 win, while last year, a 43-point performance by Tye Jackson led Houston to a 71-58 victory.

All games in the tournament will be streamed live at ConferenceUSA.cstv.com. For full tournament information, click here.