The Marshall Thundering Herd women’s basketball team returns to the Cam Henderson Center this week for a pair of home games against North Texas and Rice after defeating UTEP and UTSA in Texas.

Marshall (13-9, 7-2 C-USA) is looking to conquer the North Texas Mean Green (11-10, 4-5 C-USA) on Thursday night. Head coach Tony Kemper credits the team for taking each game one at a time so far this season.

“We’re just finding a way to win,” Kemper said. “Sometimes it is really pretty and sometimes it’s ugly. We’re figuring out a way to just hang in there long enough to turn it on when we need to. (I’m) proud of their fight and how they are playing together.”

The Herd is led by senior guard Shayna Gore, who averages 19.0 points and 1.9 steals per game. Redshirt senior Taylor Porter follows behind with 12 points and four rebounds per contest. Redshirt junior Khadaijia Brooks adds 8.8 points, 6.6 rebounds and one block per game along with sophomore guard Kristen Mayo averaging eight points.

Porter said that the team has strived to improve attitude and effort this season.

 “You just play together as a team,” Porter said. “You stay together. You can’t be away from staying together. You can’t deviate from what is going on.”

Redshirt senior guard Terriell Bradley leads the Mean Green and averages 17.6 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.1 steals per contest. Junior post player Anisha George adds 11.4 points and 8.2 rebounds. Senior guard Grace Goodhart accounts for 6.2 points and 1.3 assists.

The Herd is seeking its third straight conference victory against the Mean Green. Afterwards, the team will look to finish the week against the league leaders Rice Owls on Saturday. Marshall is currently sitting fourth in the Conference USA standings alone, with the top four teams in the conference receiving a first-round bye in the conference tournament.

“We’ve put ourselves in a position to fight for something that really nobody put us in that thought going into the year,” Kemper said. “Every game is really big. North Texas is basically in every game. We’ll have to play well on both ends of the floor.”

Porter said that it’s good to have a crowd cheering on the Herd at home games.

“It feels great,” Porter said. “You got fans coming out on Thursday night and Saturday, taking away from their day to come watch us play. We just have to play hard every game. We can’t just let off.”

Tipoff against North Texas is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Cam Henderson Center. Marshall and Rice will play at noon on Saturday.

Taylor Huddleston can be contacted at [email protected].