March 11, 2010

Box Score

Photo Gallery

OREM, Utah - Asumi Nakayama scored a career-high 26 points and Jenna Johnson added 21 more to lead the Utah Valley University women's basketball team to an 76-61 upset victory over No. 3 seed Chicago State in the first round of the Great West Conference Tournament Thursday night.

The Wolverines, the No. 6 seed, advance to play No. 2 seed UTPA Friday at 2:30 p.m. in the semifinals.

The Wolverines, who led by three points at the break, led by six on several occasions in the second half. After the Cougars cut the lead to four with 11 minutes left in the game, Johnson and Nakayama buried back-to-back three-pointers and the Wolverines built their first double-digit lead of the game at 55-45 with 9:26 left.

UVU, which lost the first two meetings this year with Chicago State by an average of 13.5 points a game, increased the lead to as high as 18 on a pair of fouls shots by Kaycee Mansfield with less than a minute to play.

With their third straight victory, the Wolverines improve to 8-22 on the year, while the Cougars end their season 12-19.

"I'm really proud of our kids. I feel like we've been preparing and building to this. It's huge for us to come in as the sixth seed and to be able to put together a game against a very good Chicago State team," UVU head coach Cathy Nixon said. "For the last month or so we've actually been playing pretty good basketball. Tonight was kind of the culmination of that."

Nakayama connected on 5-of-11 shots from the field, including 4-of-7 from the three-point line and 12-of-14 from the foul line. She also had four rebounds and seven assists.

"The way that Asumi just ran the team on both ends of the court was just awesome," Nixon said.

The game was tied eight times in the first half with the last coming at 25-25 with 4:25 left in the first half. The Wolverines, who never led by more than two points in the first 16 minutes, opened up a seven-point advantage at 35-28 with 1:07 left in the half.

Johnson started UVU's 7-0 run with a two buckets and Kayla Burningham knocked down a three-pointer. After a Chicago State basket cut the UVU lead to four, Nakayama drained a three-ball to give the Wolverines their largest lead of the first half.

The Cougars scored six of the last eight points in the half to narrow the UVU lead to three at 37-34 at the break.

Nakayama led the Wolverines, who shot 54.5 percent in the first half, with 12 first-half points, while Johnson added eight and Burningham added seven in the half.

Behind Nakayama and Johnson, Burningham finished with nine points wile Erika Newbold had eight points and a team-high eight rebounds, and Julie Smith had seven points.

Utah Valley shot 50 percent from the field, while Chicago State shot 41.5 percent.

Courtney Waldon led Chicago State with 14 points.