Marshall women prep to face defending champs

TULSA, Okla. — Everywhere Marshall went, it heard the chant.

"UC … UC … UCF," jingled the Knights' players at the team hotel.

"UC … UC … UCF," chimed the Knights' band at Fogelman Arena.

"UC … UC … UCF," shouted the Knights' fans at a local restaurant.

At the 2009 Conference USA Tournament, the UCF women's basketball team took over New Orleans. From its support in the stands to its play on the court.

And now the defending C-USA champs are back.

Different venue, same tournament, same team.

Marshall will get the conference's first crack at dethroning the Knights at 1 p.m. ET today at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

"You really don't know what you're going to get out of them because they really didn't have the season everyone expected them to have," said Thundering Herd junior forward Tynikki Crook said of eighth-seeded UCF. "So you don't know if it's going to break out in the tournament and we're hoping that it doesn't."

Crook's hope is twofold. No. 1, the last thing ninth-seeded Marshall needs to face is a team clicking on all cylinders. After all, the Herd (14-15, 6-10 C-USA) has lost seven of its last eight games.

But No. 2, UCF may be one of the most dangerous eight seeds in any conference tournament in the country.

The Knights, who lost just one player from last year's championship squad, seemed like the consensus pick to repeat as queens of the conference at the beginning of this season.

They had Emma Cannon, the reigning C-USA Tournament Most Valuable Player, to provide a scoring punch in the post and Joi Williams, the reigning C-USA Coach of the Year, to provide valuable direction on the sideline.

But things haven't gone to plan.

UCF (10-15, 7-9 C-USA) lost 10 of its first 13 games, and if it weren't for a late-season surge, may have been playing in this tournament as a No. 11 or 12-seed.

"I think everyone changes as the season goes along," said Marshall coach Royce Chadwick of the Knights' inconsistency since last March. "It's a situation where you can be hot at the end of the year and go through the summer and things can change.

"You can have a injury-filled offseason and that can make a difference in your preparations for the fall."

Marshall and UCF have played each other twice this season. The Herd with Crook, its leading scorer and rebounder, beat the Knights 74-60 on Jan. 8 at the Cam Henderson Center. The Herd without Crook, who missed seven games because of a broken hand, fell to the Knights 56-47 in Orlando on Feb. 4.

Today, it will be with Crook.

"We're a better basketball team when we have all our people," Chadwick said. "We've played games without Veronica Ruiz and we weren't quite as good. We've played games with Chantelle Handy not being 100 percent and we're not quite as good.

"So we're a better basketball team when we have our mainstays healthy.  Fortunately for us right now, Ty's hand is bothering her some but she gets better every day."

The Herd went 2-5 without Crook, but has only won one of five games since she returned to the lineup Feb. 13 against UTEP.

She said she still feels some pain in her right hand.

"I'm at about 88 percent," she said.

It may take a 110 percent effort for Crook to conquer today's matchup with Cannon.

The Preseason C-USA Player of the Year is averaging 11 points and 10 rebounds a game.

"She's really good," Crook said. "She's very physical and relentless on rebounds. She's somebody you have to play 40 minutes against because she's going to play 40 minutes.

"I have a lot of respect for her, but I just want to prove what I can do up against players like that."

In their four head-to-head matchups, dating back to Jan. 31, 2008, Cannon has got the best of Crook, averaging 14 points and 10 boards against her Marshall counterpart.

Crook has just been held to an average of just nine  points and six boards in those games.

"Any time you go across the board in Conference USA, there's some very intriguing matchups and fortunately, or unfortunately, they all involve Tynikki Crook for Marshall because she's our go-to girl," Chadwick said.

"And Emma Cannon's a great basketball player. She's very strong, very agile, very tenacious, tremendous rebounder, great defender. Offensively, she's extremely powerful and can explode at any moment.

"She has all the tools to be a next-level player — as does Ty. It's their strength versus our strength when those two players are going head-to-head."

First-seeded Tulane awaits the winner of Marshall-UCF. That quarterfinal matchup will tip off at 1 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Andrew Ramspacher can be contacted at ramspacher@marshall.edu.