WCC Tournament Women’s Final Preview: #5 BYU vs. #6 San Francisco

2015 WCC Women’s Championship Preview

#6 San Francisco (19-12, 8-10) vs. #5 BYU (22-9, 12-6)

When: Tuesday, March 10 at 1 pm

Television: ESPNU

For the first time since 1997, the San Francisco women will play for the WCC Championship title. They will face the BYU women in Las Vegas on Tuesday at 1 pm.

San Francisco started the WCC tournament as the #6 seed and won a very big game over the #2 seed San Diego 65-57 on Monday afternoon to advance to the Championship round. The Dons were down 13 points going into halftime. The ladies not only made up the scoring deficit but held perennial powerhouse San Diego to 15 points the entire second half.

Taj Winston (15.7 ppg, 5.2 rpg) and All-WCC First Team member Taylor Proctor (12.4 ppg, 7.8 rpg) lead the Dons in both scoring and rebounding.  Both are members of the USF 1,000 point club. Paige Speitz is the top free throw shooter for the team.  Zhane Dikes, a All-WCC Honorable Mention player contributes 9.9 points per game. The team as a whole is ranked 12^th nationally in free throw shooting.

The Dons have lost by narrow margins in their last two meetings with BYU. They lost by 3 points in their first conference game and 5 points in the second.  Turnovers were the killer for San Francisco in the last meeting of the two teams.  Based on their outstanding play against San Diego, it appears that San Francisco has shored up that weakness.

More from 2015 WCC Tournament

• Looking Back on Gonzaga’s Season
• Gonzaga Wins Men’s WCC Championship
• BYU Wins Women’s WCC Tournament Championship
• WCC Tournament Men’s Final Preview: #1 Gonzaga vs. #2 BYU
• WCC Championship Keys to the Game: Gonzaga

Meanwhile, BYU took Gonzaga’s ladies by surprise defeating the Lady Zags 61-55 to advance to the Championship game. The Cougars have ample weaponry in their arsenal with WCC Player of the Year and All-WCC First Team selection forward Morgan Bailey.  All-WCC First Team guard Lexi Eaton averages 20.9 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.  Guards Makenzi Morrison (9.3 ppg), Xojian Harry and Kylie Maeda are also consistently in the mix.

The Cougars are a defense driven team and like San Francisco, experienced their own knock down, drag out semifinal win to advance to the Championship game. A troublesome backache did not defeat Morgan Bailey who set the pain aside to contribute 8 points and 9 rebounds to the winning effort. Makenzi Morrison led the team in scoring with 18 points. Lexi Eaton played with great balance with 16 points, 4 steals, 4 rebounds and 4assists in the victory.

The Women’s WCC Championship game will be an exciting finale featuring two unexpected teams to cap off the 2014-2015 basketball campaign. The #5 Cougars will face the #6 Dons at 1 pm on ESPNU.