March 10, 2006

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DENVER (AP) - Junior center Dani Kubik scored a career-best 24 points and No. 20 Brigham Young survived a second-half slump to beat TCU 63-53 Friday and advance to the championship of the Mountain West Conference tournament.

Mallary Gillespie added 18 points and Ambrosia Anderson had 12 points and 10 boards for the Cougars (25-4), who will play 19th-ranked and second-seeded Utah (23-6) Saturday with the winner earning an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.

The instate rivals are locks to get in, so the title game is more about pride and possibly a better seeding.

The Lady Frogs (18-11) lost for the third time in 17 conference tournament games. TCU won the 2001 Western Athletic Conference tourney and the 2003 and '05 Conference USA tournament championships before joining the Mountain West Conference this school year.

Gillespie (13), Anderson (10) and Kubik (10) each scored in double figures by halftime as BYU, which led by as many as 15, took a 36-24 lead into the locker room.

The Lady Frogs trimmed the deficit to 43-39 on Natasha Lacy's 3-pointer with 14:20 remaining, but TCU went cold after that, allowing the Cougars to regain their composure and control of the game.

In one frustrating sequence, the Lady Frogs missed four shots underneath the basket before BYU grabbed the rebound.

Lacy and Adrianne Ross each scored 11 points for TCU, which shot 26 percent from the floor and was 13-of-22 from the stripe.