After suffering losses Thursday night to Middle Tennessee, both the Marshall University men’s and women’s basketball teams look to rebound on Saturday vs UAB. With Conference USA scheduling, both the men’s and women’s teams play the same school on the same day during conference play, with one playing at home and the other on the road.

The Marshall women’s basketball team (10-6, 2-3 Conference USA) faces off with UAB (8-7, 1-3 Conference USA) at the Cam Henderson Center on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET. The Blazers are coming off of a 60-48 defeat at Western Kentucky on Thursday. The Herd fell to the defending C-USA tournament champions Middle Tennessee 72-63 on Thursday, but head coach Matt Daniel was proud of his team following the game.

“I thought that we fought,” Daniel said at his press conference following the game. “I thought we tried to execute everything that I tried to execute…given the circumstances, we fought our tails off.”

The Herd will need big performances again from sophomore Shayna Gore, who scored 25 points against the Blue Raiders on Thursday. Fellow sophomore Khadaijia Brooks registered her second consecutive double-double on Thursday with 11 points and 10 rebounds, and will hope for another good performance against UAB.

The Marshall men’s basketball team (11-7, 4-1 C-USA) is coming off of their first loss in conference play, and will look to bounce back Saturday at 2 p.m. ET against UAB (10-7, 3-1 C-USA). The Herd suffered a 69-57 defeat in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Thursday, and was held to just 57 points, a non-typical low statistic for Dan D’Antoni’s team. A positive from the game was the return of 6’7 junior forward Terrence Thompson, who played for the first time in over a month.

“I tried to challenge him a little bit into being more physical,” D’Antoni said in the team’s press conference following the game. “I thought he was cautious when he first went out, but he looked like his old self in the second half.”

UAB will be a tough team for Marshall to defeat on Saturday. The Blazers are coming off of a 72-54 victory over Western Kentucky. UAB has won 19 straight home conference games at Bartow Arena, and it will be up to Marshall to prevent that number from raising to 20.

Regardless of Saturday’s results, the teams will both face off against UAB again on February 16, with the men hosting the Blazers, and the women traveling down to Birmingham. However, as both teams are coming off close losses to Middle Tennessee, it is certainly a big Saturday for Herd basketball.

Patrick O’Leary can be contacted at [email protected].