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STORRS, Conn. - The Rutgers women's basketball team keeps on dancing team as the eighth-seeded Scarlet Knights knocked off ninth-seeded Seton Hall, 79-66, on Saturday night to advance to the second round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
Kahleah Copper (Philadelphia, Pa.) and Tyler Scaife (Arkansas, Ark.) led the team with 21 points each. Betnijah Laney (Clayton, Del.) captured her 20th double-double of the year as she poured in 17 points in the victory, including a 4-of-6 effort from beyond the arc, along with 12 rebounds.
The Pirates were led by Tabatha Richardson-Smith with 18 points. Tiffany Jones added 17 points in the loss, while Janee Johnson contributed 12 points to wrap up the double-figure scorers.
Rutgers opened the night with seven uncontested points, holding Seton Hall scoreless for nearly three minutes of play. The Pirates closed the gap with a three-point play followed by a three-pointer from Johnson to bring the score to 7-6.
However, the Scarlet Knights responded with back-to-back three pointers from Bryiona Canty (Willingboro, N.J.) and Laney to extend their lead to 13-6 with 15:48 to go in the first half.
A 9-0 rally by Seton Hall midway through the opening stanza saw the Pirates take a brief lead. Richardson-Smith tied the game at 21-21 with 9:29 left in the first half and Jones followed with a layup just moments later to give the Pirates a two-point 23-21 edge.
The Pirates would not hold the lead for long as Rutgers countered with a 12-0 run across the next four minutes of action. The run had RU establish a 33-23 lead with 4:10 remaining to go until the intermission.
Rutgers took its largest lead of the night as Laney drained one of her four three-pointers and Scaife completed the traditional three-point play to give RU a 42-29 lead with 1:26 to go.
Despite a 7-0 from Seton Hall to close the half, RU remained in front, 42-36, heading into the locker room.
The Scarlet Knights jumped ahead, 49-37, at the start of the second half, holding at least an eight-point margin for the initial 13 minutes of the stanza.
With RU ahead 56-45, Seton Hall would have an 11-0 burst highlighted by two three-pointers from Johnson to tie the score at 56-56 with 9:14 remaining. Scaife responded by knocking in her 1000th career point to return the lead to Rutgers for good.
The Scarlet Knights and Pirates went wire-to-wire for the remaining minutes of the contest. Seton Hall managed to pull within one at 64-63 with 5:05 on the clock, however Laney punched back with another from beyond the arc to deny the comeback.
The Rutgers women's basketball team will face top-seeded Connecticut on Monday.
KNIGHT NOTES
- NCAA Tournament starting lineup featured Kahleah Copper, Tyler Scaife, Briyona Canty, Ariel Butts & Betnijah Laney.
- Rutgers advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011.
- The Scarlet Knights improved to 36-23 all-time in the NCAA Tournament and 15-5 in first round contests.
- Tyler Scaife became the 36th Scarlet Knight to score 1,000 career points. She now has 1,009 career points. Scaife becomes the third Scarlet Knight, joining Betnijah Laney and Kahleah Copper, to reach the milestone this season.
- Kahleah Copper and Scaife both finished with a game-high 21 points.
- Scaife captured her 10th 20+ point outing of the season. She had 11 of her 21 points in the second half. She also shot 7-of-8 from the free throw line setting a season-high in free throws made.
- Laney posted her 20th double-double of the season with 21 points to go along with 12 boards. She now has 35 career double-doubles. The senior Scarlet Knight had 10 points and seven rebounds at the half.
- With her 21 points, Laney now has 1,390 points and is 10 points shy of becoming the 14th Scarlet Knight to score 1,400 points in a career.
- With her 12 boards, Laney becomes the sixth Scarlet Knight with over 900 career boards. She now has 908 career rebounds.
- With 21 points, Copper registered her 10th 20+ point game of the year.
- Copper now has 1,260 career points and moved into 22nd on the RU all-time scoring leaders list surpassing Tammy Sutton-Brown (1997-01). She needs three more points to move past Essence Carson (2004-08) for 21st on the list.
- Rachel Hollivay came off the bench for seven rebounds and three blocks after suffering a knee injury in the quarterfinal Big Ten contest with Northwestern. It was her 14th game of the season and 37th game of her career with three or more rejections.
- RU held a 42-36 advantage at the half and improved to 25-3 when leading at the intermission.
- The Scarlet Knights went 7-of-13 from three-point range, the most three-pointers by the team since hitting six three-point shots at Iona on Dec. 20. It was RU's fifth game of the year with five or more made shots from downtown in a game.
- Rutgers shot 53.8 percent from long range marking the seventh game shooting 500 or better from beyond the arc this season.
- Betnijah Laney finished 4-of-6 from downtown. Her four made three-point field goals were a career-high. Her previous high was two - captured on three different occasions in her four-year career.
- Head coach C. Vivian Stringer needs three more victories to become the all-time winningest basketball coach at Rutgers. She now holds a 432-215 record "on the banks".
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