WAC Tournament: Gallup and Carmichael fuel BYU win

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, March 3, 1998 | 10:04 a.m.

BYU coach Trent Shippen stated the obvious following his team's 71-67 first round WAC Tournament victory over Fresno State.

"Those two players were huge for us," Shippen said referring to forwards Kari Gallup and Barbie Carmichael. "They were just huge."

How huge were they?

Well, Carmichael and Gallup combined for 50 of BYU's points Monday night before a crowd of 586 at the Thomas & Mack Center. Even more impressive was the fact the duo combined to hit 10 of their 15 3-point tries.

Carmichael finished with 27 points on 11 of 15 shooting, including 5 of 7 3-pointers while Gallup added 23 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

Not a bad one-two punch.

"Those 3's were back-breakers," said Fresno State coach Linda Wonder. "Gallup and Carmichael both played great games."

Especially in crunch time.

Fresno State held an eight-point lead, 52-44, with 12:02 left when Gallup swished a long 3-pointer from the left of the key to trigger a 16-8 Cougar spurt that was capped by a 3-pointer by Carmichael.

After forward Tiffany Lewis put Fresno back ahead, 62-60, with an eight-foot turnaround jumper, Gallup hit a wide-open 3-pointer from about two feet behind the arc to put BYU ahead to stay, 63-62, with 4:11 left.

"I thought we were going to pull ahead until Gallup hit a few 3's and they got rolling," said Wonder.

BYU advances to play Mountain Division champion Utah (21-4) in the quarterfinals on Wednesday night at 8:30. The Cougars split with the Utes during conference play, winning a 70-64 decision in Provo in their last matchup on Feb. 4.

"Our team is really looking forward to playing Utah," said Gallup. "That was one of our goals --- get past this game and play Utah again. ... I think we match up well with them."

* New Mexico 64, Tulsa 54: The Golden Hurricane (9-18), who had lost six of their seven previous games entering the tournament, gave the Lobos (23-6) a surprisingly tough battle thanks to some outstanding second half shooting.

Tulsa shot 61.1% (11 of 18) from the floor after intermission and also made nine of its 10 free throws in the second half. When forward Kasi Pittman sank two free throws with 4:08 left, the Golden Hurricane trailed by just five points, 54-49.

But the Lobos took advantage of their superior inside size as well as Tulsa's problems handling the ball (27 tunrovers) to pull away down the stretch.

"There were two things that really hurt us this game," said Tulsa coach Marla Odom. "Not blocking out their taller girls and we had a lot of turnovers."

New Mexico, which was led by 6-0 senior forward Abby Garchek (18 points, 6 rebounds) and 67-2 junior center Katie Kern (15 points, 7 rebounds), faces Pacific Division winner Hawaii (24-2) in Wednesday's quarterfinals at 2:30.

"Hawaii has good individual players," said New Mexico coach Don Flanigan. "They've had a very successful season and we'll have to play our best to win."

* SMU 69, Wyoming 55: For about 24 minutes, SMU looked like it could kiss any NCAA Tournament hopes goodbye.

The Mustangs (21-6), the third seed from the Pacific Division, trailed the Cowgirls (10-18), 37-36, with 15:58 remaining.

But SMU, behind forward Claudia Brassard (15 points, 12 rebounds) and center Karlin Kennedy (13 points), went on a 23-11 streak over the next 12 minutes and then held on for the victory.

"We all got caught up in the seeding," said SMU coach Rhonda Rhompola. "Wyoming did not get caught up in that. ... Today we played not to lose, not as a team that wanted to win. In the second half we were a lot more aggressive."

SMU faces Colorado State (22-4), the co-champion of the Mountain Division, on Wednesday at noon.

"We played 20 minutes today but we better play 40 minutes on Wednesday if we want to win," said Rhompola. "We had to win this one if we wanted any chance to go to the NCAA's, and 21 wins should go a long way toward doing that."

bu . UTEP 63, TCU 49: TCU (13-15) used a zone and lots of double-teaming to help slow down UTEP's one-two inside punch of 6-1 center Kanequa Chancellor and 6-0 Kiana Taylor. But junior guard Kim Daniel picked up the scoring slack for the Miners (16-10).

Daniel, a 5-8 junior from Houston, scored a game-high 21 points, including a pair of 3-pointers.

"Kim Daniel really responded for us," said UTEP coach Sandra Rushing. "We were prepared for their zone. They shut down our inside game with double and triple teams, but our shooters were on tonight."

UTEP will face Rice (19-7) on Wednesday night at 6 p.m.