A'Queen Hayes saved her best for the biggest game of the season to date and, as a result, Middle Tennessee will be playing for the C-USA Championship against No. 24-ranked Rice at 4:30 p.m. Saturday on CBS Sports (Comcast 1303).
Hayes poured in a career-high 34 points on 13-of-23 shooting and grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds for her eighth double-double of the season. Hayes, who played all 40 minutes, was most outstanding in the second half when the game was on the line. The senior transfer was 9-of-11 from the field in the second half when she scored 23 of her points.
Only nine players in the history of the C-USA Championship have scored more than Hayes did with her 34 points, which was just nine points shy of the tournament record.
"I have been doing this for more than 40 years, and I have seen some great players make great plays, but I saw Queen make a couple moves tonight that I haven't seen before," Head Coach Rick Insell said. "Everyone needs a Queen, and I'm glad we have ours.
"I am just really proud of our young ladies. They really played well and they had to in order to secure this victory against a very good UAB team."
Taylor Sutton also flexed her muscles and poured in 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting, including a 3-of-5 mark from beyond the arc. She also dished out three assists and collected a pair of steals in 38 minutes of action.
It was the 18th double-figure scoring game of the season for Sutton and the 10th against C-USA competition.
Their efforts were paramount considering Alex Johnson was saddled with her third foul early in the second quarter. She only played nine minutes in the first half and 27 for the game, contributing seven points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Jess Louro, Anna Jones, Charity Savage and Jordan Majors also supplied solid play in victory. Louro added six points on two big fourth-quarter 3-pointers, including the dagger with 1:21 remaining to push the advantage back to nine, 71-62, after UAB had cut a 15-point deficit to six.
Jones added five points, three assists, one block and one steal, while Savage added four points and three rebounds in relief of Johnson in the second quarter. It was Savage's second field goal that enabled Middle Tennessee to take a 37-36 advantage into the locker room at halftime. Majors added five rebounds and dished out two assists.
Middle Tennessee continued its strong shooting in the tournament with a 49 percent shooting performance, knocking down 28-of-57 shots. More impressive was the shooting effort from beyond the 3-point arc, where the Lady Raiders were 9-of-14 for 64.3 percent.