American Athletic Conference quarterfinals afternoon session: East Carolina, Connecticut advance
UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Quarterfinal play in the American Conference 2015 tournament got underway with two games this afternoon, with two more in the evening sessions.
In the day games, fifth-seeded East Carolina upset fourth-seeded Temple 77-71 and top-seeded Connecticut blew by ninth-seeded Cincinnati .
East Carolina 77, Temple 71
First team All-Conference selection Jada Payne paced East Carolina, as the Pirates opened up an 18-point lead and held off a late Temple come back to advance.
Payne scored a game high 22 points for the Pirates. Jasmine Phillips added 15 points, five rebounds and four assists, abria Trice scored 13, and conference Newcomer of the Year I’Tiana Trice had a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Temple shot only 32 percent in the first half, but came back by attacking the basket in the second, scoring 28 of their 42 second half points in the paint. Erica Covile had 19 points and eight rebounds for Temple; the Owls also got 16 points from Tyonna Willaims,and 13 from Feyonda Fitzgerald.
Connecticut 93, Cincinnati 34
Senior Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis hit 7-of-11 first half shots on her way to 18 points and tournament top seed Connecticut cruised to a 59-point victory.
Breanna Stewart scored 13 points, had 12 rebounds, five assists and three blocks, and Moriah Jefferson added 12 points and nine assists.
UConn used their size advantage to dominate the boards, outrebounding the Bearcats 50-25, and scoring 44 points in the paint.
Cincinnati was led by Chelsea Jamison and Mackenzie Cann with eight points each.
“It’s a three day tournament, that you try to win one game each day and try not to get caught up in what’s down the road,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said postgame.
“You try to execute the things you want to execute, and I thought we did a lot of really, really good things and our good players played really good.”
Connecticut and East Carolina will play on Sunday at 5:30 pm ET, and will be televised on ESPNU.
