University of Tulsa’s women’s basketball team had a stellar season, but it came to an end last Thursday in the WBIT Quarterfinals as Illinois defeated the Golden Hurricane, 69-61, in front of a season-high crowd of 3,054 fans at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

Tulsa ends the season with an overall record of 25-10, while the Fighting Illini moved on to the WBIT semifinals with a 17-15 mark. The 25 wins for Tulsa is the second-most in school history. The Golden Hurricane won 26 games in the 2005-06 season.

Tulsa got into foul trouble early with Temira Poindexter and Delanie Crawford picking up two fouls apiece. This limited their playing time. Crawford sat the final 13:53 of the first half after picking up her second personal at the 3:53 mark of the first quarter. Crawford was scoreless in the first half while Poindexter scored just four points in the first 20 minutes.

Poindexter finished the game with 19 points and Crawford 17, as the duo combined for 32 of Tulsa’s 37 second-half points.

Illinois was led by four players in double-figures; Genesis Bryant with 19 points, Makira Cooks added 17, Kendall Bostic and Adelia McKenzie had 10 points apiece, while Bostic had a game-high 16 rebounds.

“I cannot say enough about this team,” said Tulsa head coach Angie Nelp. “I cannot say enough about their heart. I cannot say enough about their fight. I want to make sure that everybody hears me on just how proud I am of our heart, how proud I am of our fight, the perseverance that we have to continue even in March. We’re honored to be playing this late in March.”

The Illini shot 50-percent from the field and three-pointers, while Tulsa shot just 32-percent from the field and 33-percent from behind the arc in the first half.

“We didn’t shoot the ball as well as we wanted to and we got off to a little bit of a slow start,” Nelp said. “But you saw the way that we were able to continue to compete and continue to kind of turn the tide when we got down and be able to kind of fight and claw our way back.”

The Hurricane would get as close as six points late in the game, on a Poindexter lay-in with 1:34 remaining on the clock. Three-point attempts at 0:21 and 0:09 for the Hurricane missed leaving the Illini to claim the nine-point victory.