UF women's basketball team faces South Florida

<p>Over the summer, the Florida and South Florida women's basketball teams helped each other start workouts with a loose scrimmage at the UF basketball facility. Thursday night, the teams are looking to send one another into an early summer break.</p><p> Five Florida seniors are looking for redemption from a senior day loss to Alabama on Feb. 28 and hope to extend their careers at least one more day when the Gators host the Bulls at 7 p.m. at the O'Connell Center for a Women's NIT first-round game.</p><p> “The season didn't go as we planned,” sophomore guard Jordan Jones said. “This gives us another chance to redeem ourselves, send our seniors out right and give our fans a lasting memory to think about this team, more than just a loss to Alabama.”</p><p> South Florida (15-15, 6-10 Big East) enters with the experience of cutting down the nets following a win over Kansas in the WNIT championship game last year. This year's Bulls squad hasn't had quite the same experience. With the injury list growing on a weekly basis, USF will tip-off Thursday night with eight healthy players.</p><p> That doesn't mean the Gators (14-16) are expecting an easy ticket to round two.</p><p> One obstacle in advancing to the winner of Miami and Florida Gulf Coast game will be sitting in the paint every time Florida tries to drive the ball. Jessica Lawson, a 6-foot-3 senior center, is having a career season, averaging 14.2 points and 10.5 rebounds per game.</p><p> “She isn't the type of player you can just do one thing and try to stop her,” Florida coach Amanda Butler said. “You have to give her different looks, keep changing things up and try to confuse her.”</p><p> One of those looks is likely to come from 6-foot-4 UF center Azania Stewart. After missing the final two weeks of the regular season with a stress fracture in her left foot, Stewart returned to play 14 minutes in the team's 74-61 loss to Auburn in the opening round of the SEC Tournament on March 4. Stewart participated in most of the team's workouts since the loss and Butler expects her to play today.</p><p> Stewart, along with her teammates, received text messages from Butler around midnight Monday when news broke of the team's matchup against the Bulls. Preparations for the coaching staff began just moments later.</p><p> “Practices have been great,” senior Sharielle Smith said. “We've gotten better in the last few weeks and it's nice to now turn that around and have an actual opponent to focus on.”</p>