Nasrin Ulel scored a game-high 23 points, while Keri Jewett-Giles scored 12 of her 19 points in the final quarter as the FGCU women's basketball team (7-1) knocked off No. 20 USF 81-77 in the Hard Rock Hotel as part of the Cancun Challenge on Friday.
With the win, FGCU produced its fourth all-time win over a ranked team, and USF is the second-highest ranked team they've defeated behind No. 15 Missouri in the 2018 NCAA Tournament. The Eagles will now meet South Dakota State (5-2) at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday for the championship after the Jackrabbits also defeated Notre Dame and USF over the past two days.
"We beat a very good and well-coached team," FGCU head coach Karl Smesko said. "It was great to see so many people make positive contributions. Nasrin was excellent. Ashli hit all those free throws down the stretch. Ty played great, and players that maybe weren't feeling 100 percent like Phills came in and really battled for us. It was just a great all-around win. To beat a team that good, you have to have a lot of people contributing. I thought Keri had an excellent second half. Whenever we needed a basket or needed to do something, someone stepped up."
USF scored 19 of the game's first 28 points and led by 10 with 2:03 left in the first quarter. In response, Kerstie Phills and Alyssa Blair hit a pair of 3-pointers, and Ashli O'Neal found Tytionia Adderly for a buzzer-beating layup to pull the Eagles within four through the first 10 minutes.
A 3-pointer from Ulel pulled FGCU within one with 7:46 left in the half, but the Bulls pushed their lead back to six twice over the next three minutes. Davion Wingate, who had been held scoreless up to that point, caught fire by sinking a pair of free throws and converting back-to-back layups to pull the Eagles within two. USF converted a layup with 23 seconds left, but Wingate found Ulel for another buzzer-beater, which came via a 3-pointer.
With that shot, Ulel surpassed 1,000 points in the Green and Blue. She ranks 10th on the program's Division I era scoring list with 1,015, just one shy of Courtney Chihil (1,016, 2008-12) for ninth-place. Her milestone marked the third-consecutive game that an Eagle has reached 1,000 points in her NCAA career - joining Jewett-Giles against Saint Francis and Wingate against Notre Dame.
FGCU couldn't seem to gain the lead to open the second half as USF took a five-point lead twice. Adderly, though, changed all that with her second 3-pointer of the game with 5:24 left in the third. Moments later, Adderly found Ulel for another one from long distance to push the lead to five, although the Bulls trimmed their deficit to one entering the fourth.
The Eagles opened the fourth on a 5-0 run, and a trio of free throws and a layup from Jewett-Giles pushed the margin to nine with 6:31 left. The senior guard also hit two key free throws with 1:14 left after USF trimmed its deficit to three.
From there, O'Neal made 5-of-6 from the foul line and drew an offensive foul that wiped out a made 3-pointer from USF that would have pulled the Bulls within three with 26 seconds left. The Eagles then sealed the game at the foul line as USF's last-second layup proved meaningless.
O'Neal finished 7-for-8 from the foul line in the final quarter while drawing five fouls and adding two assists. Wingate (8-for-8) became the 11th player in the program's Division I era to make at least eight free throw attempts without a miss.
Offensively, Ulel (23), Jewett-Giles (19) and Wingate (12) combined for 54 of FGCU's 81 points, while Adderly and O'Neal each added nine. In fact, Adderly had a team-high 10 rebounds along with four assists and two steals while falling just one point shy of her second-consecutive double-double, while Jewett-Giles finished second in rebounds with six. O'Neal had a game-high six assists, and Ulel led the way with three steals.
Notes
Emma List earned her first start of the season.
After getting outrebounded 25-12 in the first half, FGCU responded with an 18-16 advantage in the second half while shooting 10-for-22 from the field, including 5-for-10 from 3-point range with three of those coming from Ulel, who had the second-most field goal attempts in a game in the program's Division I era with 22, falling just shy of Kaneisha Atwater's 24 vs Western Michigan on Dec. 21, 2015.
FGCU is now 3-2 all-time against USF after winning the first neutral site matchup between the two programs. The Eagles have also won two in a row in the series dating back to a home win on Dec. 4, 2013.
South Dakota State defeated Notre Dame 65-59 in the other game of the day.
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