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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The University of Alabama in Huntsville women's basketball team (18-4, 9-2 GSC) puts its undefeated home record on the line Thursday, along with the Gulf South Conference regular season title, as the Lady Chargers welcome the league-leading Delta State Lady Statesmen (17-4, 10-1 GSC) on in a battle between the top two teams in the Gulf South Conference.
For now, UAH controls its destiny. With just three conference games remaining, DSU can move within one victory of clinching at least a share of the GSC regular season title by defeating the Lady Chargers on Thursday, while a UAH loss would knock the Lady Chargers out of the race for the regular season title.
With a victory, the Lady Chargers would tie DSU atop the standings. If UAH defeats DSU, and both teams win its two remaining league games, the GSC title would be shared. For GSC Tournament seeding purposes, and because both UAH and DSU would have the same record against GSC opponents, the tiebreaker would be determined by win-loss record against common non-conference opponents played at the same venue. In that case, DSU would earn the No. 1 seed by virtue of defeating Florida Southern on the road, while UAH lost to Florida Southern on the road.
Thursday's will be a battle of offense versus defense. UAH, the GSC-leading and nation's eighth-ranked scoring offense (78.3 PPG), will be facing a DSU team which tops the GSC and ranks second in the nation in scoring defense (51.0 PPG). The Lady Statesman rank second in the GSC in scoring with 62.7 points per contest, but they still average over 15 points less than UAH.
UAH continues to be led by sophomore
Jasmine Hammon who is averaging 17 point per game on the year, and has led the team in scoring and steals in four of the last seven games. UAH, as a team, boasts the sixth-best turnover margin in the nation, forcing opponents into 7.3 more turnovers than they are giving up. The Lady Chargers have scored over 33 percent of its total points off turnovers this year.
DSU enters Thursday's contest amid an 11-game winning streak, dropping its lone league loss on the road against Valdosta State. The Lady Statesmen have two players scoring in double figures on a nightly basis, led by conference-leader Veronica Walker who is pouring in 18.4 points per game. Brooke Rhodes is adding 13.8 points per contest, while Walker also leads the squad in rebounding with 8.7 boards per outing.
When the two teams met earlier this season in Cleveland, DSU defeated UAH by score of 92-74, snapping the Lady Chargers' six-game winning streak at the time which was the longest such streak since the 2002-03 season. Sophomore
Jasmine Hammon led a trio of Lady Chargers in double figures with a team-high 24 points, while sophomore
Jordan Smith and junior
Natalie Kelley added 19 and 10 points, respectively.
Historically, UAH has defeated DSU just once in 11 meetings, and have dropped eight consecutive contests to the Lady Statesmen. The lone victory for UAH in the all-time series came during the 1997-98 season in a game played in Huntsville.
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