BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Interstat) — Victoria Flores scored 21 points to lead No. 27 Rice to a 71-67 win over North Texas in an American Athletic Conference women’s basketball tournament game Friday at Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The Owls (27-4) used a dominant 27-point third quarter to erase a 37-32 halftime deficit. North Texas’s Megan Nestor scored 16 points, and Chania Price added 12. Rice’s Hailey Adams scored 17 and Dominique Ennis added 19. The Mean Green (18-13) led by as many as nine in the second quarter but could not hold off Rice’s surge. The Owls advance in the tournament.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Interstat) — In a taut, back-and-forth American Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinal defined by dramatic momentum swings and crucial free throws in the final seconds, the top-seeded Rice women’s basketball team survived a fierce challenge from North Texas, escaping with a 71-67 victory Friday at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The win advances the Owls, who improved to 27-4, to the tournament semifinals. North Texas, the No. 8 seed, ends its season at 18-13. The game’s pivotal sequence unfolded in the closing seconds with Rice clinging to a 69-67 lead. North Texas guard Andi Schissler was fouled on a 3-point attempt with 11 seconds remaining but could only make one of two free throws. Rice’s Victoria Flores was then fouled with six seconds left and calmly sank both free throws to extend the lead to 71-68. North Texas had one final chance, but Aysia Proctor’s desperation 3-point attempt at the buzzer missed, sealing the Owls’ victory. The contest was a tale of contrasting halves and quarters. Rice stormed out to a 23-15 lead after the first period, powered by the inside-outside combination of Hailey Adams and Dominique Ennis. North Texas responded with a dominant second quarter, outscoring the Owls 22-9 to take a 37-32 halftime lead. The Mean Green defense stifled Rice, holding them without a field goal for over seven minutes during one stretch. The third quarter belonged entirely to Rice, which unleashed a 27-11 blitz to reclaim control. Flores, a guard from Dallas, ignited the run with 11 of her team-high 21 points in the period, while Ennis added nine in the quarter. The Owls’ ball movement and defensive pressure created easy opportunities, turning a five-point deficit into a 59-48 advantage heading into the final frame. Refusing to capitulate, North Texas mounted a furious fourth-quarter comeback. A 3-pointer by Mekhia Chase with 9:26 left sparked a 19-5 run that brought the Mean Green to within 67-66 with just over two minutes to play. Megan Nestor, who led all scorers with 16 points for North Texas, was instrumental in the rally, scoring six points during the surge. With the game on the line, Rice executed when it mattered most. After a defensive stop, Shelby Hayes converted a critical layup off a Flores assist with 57 seconds left to push the lead to 69-66. Following a Nestor layup that cut the deficit to one, the game was decided at the free-throw line, where Flores delivered under pressure. Flores finished with 21 points for Rice, while Ennis, from Niagara Falls, Canada, added 19. Adams contributed 17 points, four assists and several key offensive rebounds. For North Texas, Nestor’s 16 points were supplemented by 12 each from Proctor and Chania Price. Jazzy Owens-Barnett distributed four assists. The game was a rematch of a Feb. 10 meeting in Houston, which Rice also won by two points, 70-68. This victory, however, carried higher stakes, ending North Texas’s season and propelling the Owls deeper into the postseason. Rice will face the winner of the Charlotte-Temple game in the semifinals on Saturday.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Interstat) — A surging North Texas team seeks revenge and a major upset when it faces top-seeded Rice in a women’s NCAA Division I basketball tournament conference semifinal on Friday at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The 12th-seeded Mean Green (18-12) enter on a hot streak, having won four of their last five, including a 76-73 victory over Tulsa in the tournament’s first round on Thursday. North Texas is led by dynamic guard Jazzy Owens-Barnett, who nearly posted a triple-double in that win with 14 points, five rebounds and nine assists in 32 minutes. Over her last seven games, Owens-Barnett has averaged 10.3 points and 4.4 assists. They face a formidable challenge in the seed Owls (26-4), whose dominant season hit a rare snag with a 52-61 home loss to Texas-San Antonio in their regular-season finale on March 7. Rice, which boasts a potent offense that scored 105 points in a game last month, is anchored by guard Aniah Alexis. She has scored in double figures in six consecutive contests, averaging 11.0 points per game over that stretch. The teams met just over a month ago in Houston, with Rice escaping with a narrow 70-68 victory on Feb. 10. That result, and the stark contrast in season records, establishes the Owls as a heavy favorite. According to National Statistical’s ELO system, Rice holds a 71.10 percent probability to win. For North Texas, another strong performance from Owens-Barnett, coupled with the scoring of Andi Schissler (18 points vs. Tulsa), will be crucial to pulling the upset. Rice will look to Alexis and a balanced attack to reassert its dominance and advance. The winner will face either Texas-San Antonio or the Tulsa-Charlotte victor in the conference championship game.