BEAUMONT, Texas - All season long, Lamar University's women's basketball team has withstood some tough challenges and never folded to achieve the Southland Conference Regular Season Title. Now as the number one seed, the Cardinals will have an opportunity to clinch their first tournament title in 14 seasons. LU's first tournament game is on Wednesday morning at 11:00 a.m as LU will meet up with No. 5 Texas A&M-Commerce in the SLC tournament semifinals.

CELEBRATING WITH 13 DUBS IN A ROW
LU defeated Houston Christian 69-47 in their last game of the regular season. With a 13-game winning streak, which is currently eighth best in the nation, this marks the second longest winning streak in program history and the first since the 2018-19 season in which LU won 14-straight games.   

MVP, MVP, MVP
Akasha Davis was selected as the Southland Conference Player of the Year. This marks the fourth time LU has achieved this honor as Davis joins Shawnta Vanzant (01), Jenna Plumley (10) and Chastadie Barrs (19). This season, Davis averaged 15.4 ppg, 10.9 rpg, and collected 17 double-doubles. She also was selected all-conference first team and all defensive team.

COACH OF THE YEAR
Head coach Aqua Franklin was tabbed as the SLC Coach of the Year. It marks the second time Lamar won this honor since Robin Harmony back in 2018. She led her team to a 23-5 record overall and 17-1 in conference play to win the regular season conference title. Achieving her 75th career coaching win this season, she also was ranked in the top 10 black women's basketball coaches based on the overall record. 

HISTORY AS #1 SEED
This marks the fifth time in program history that LU is the number one seed in the Southland Conference Tournament. All-time, LU is 3-3 with their three wins coming in the 2010 tournament, which marked the last time LU won the tournament. LU's three other times were in 2014, 2017, and 2018 and all resulted in semifinal losses. 

SEMIFINALS HISTORY
LU has made 11 appearances in the conference tournament semifinals. The Cardinals are 3-8 all-time in the conference semifinals. Their only wins came in 2008, 2010, and last season, when they defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 68-53 to advance to the title game. 

SINCE WE LAST MET
The Lions entered the conference tournament as the number five seed. Like last year, AMC defeated both No. 8 Northwestern State and No. 4 UIW to reach the conference tournament semifinals. In last year's semifinals, the Lions pushed No. 1 Southeastern Louisiana to overtime before falling at the buzzer. 

LAST TIME AGAINST THE LIONS
The Cardinals came out with a 74-58 victory behind a 22-point, 16 rebound game from Davis. AMC's leading scorer was Jordyn Newsome, who posted 18 points. Newsome has averaged 15 points against the Cardinals this season. 

STACKING THE DECK
Mia Deck ignited the Lions to victory over UIW with 22 points on 50% made field goals. Through two games in the conference tournament, she is averaging 21.0 points per game and was second in the conference in scoring with 15.3 ppg. 

UP NEXT FOR LU
Should LU win on Wednesday, they will play in the SLC Championship game at 4:00 PM on Thursday against the winner of No. 2 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and No. 3 Southeastern. The winner of the title game will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. 

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