Western Kentucky forward Tashia Brown shoots during WKU’s 79-73 win over ODU on Saturday at E.A. Diddle Arena.

Western Kentucky welcomes a change of pace in schedule with one more goal in mind before next week’s Conference USA Tournament.

The Lady Toppers (22-6 overall, 14-2 C-USA) can claim the regular-season championship outright and a No. 1 seed in the conference tournament with the last regular season road swing through Texas.

WKU will play at North Texas at 7 p.m. Thursday, a conference team the Lady Toppers haven’t played yet this season.

Even if WKU has a first-round bye already secured in the tournament, adding a regular-season crown to this year’s resume is keeping them motivated in the final stretch.

“It’s really important,” junior Ivy Brown said. “It’s nice to have the outright championship, but just to have that No. 1 seed and put yourself in the best position you can in the tournament is important.”

Should WKU defeat North Texas, it would earn at least a share of the C-USA regular-season championship for the second time in three seasons as a member of the conference.

A win for the Lady Toppers would secure the No. 1 seed and an automatic spot in the quarterfinals, where they would play the winner of the No. 8 and No. 9-seed game. As of the current league standings, North Texas and Rice sit eighth and ninth in the conference, respectively.

Should those rankings hold through the weekend, it’s possible WKU could play either North Texas or Rice twice in the same week.

But that sort of preparation isn’t going through the mind of coach Michelle Clark-Heard. The same preparation that’s carried WKU to the top of the league standings will carry them to the end of the regular season, especially considering WKU hasn’t seen North Texas yet this year.

“Wherever we are with the draw, hopefully that’ll be a No. 1 seed, then we just go from there with whoever we have to play,” Heard said. “… It’s hard to prepare for teams you’ve already played too because there arechange ups and different things, but these are two teams we haven’t played, but two teams that are playing well.”

The Lady Toppers are coming off the second round of conference opponents, the latest involved them handling Old Dominion 79-73 on Senior Day last Saturday. WKU never gave up its lead to the Lady Monarchs and wrapped up its first undefeated record in conference home games for the first time since 2007-08.

WKU has won four straight against North Texas (11-16, 8-8) and leads the all-time series 15-6. Redshirt senior C-USA Player of the Year candidate Kendall Noble had her career-high 31 points come against the Mean Green last season in WKU’s 65-53 win in Bowling Green.

North Texas enters coming off a four-game road swing. It lost 65-49 at Louisiana Tech and 70-48 to Southern Miss last Saturday. The Mean Green had won four straight league games before those back-to-back losses.

Terriell Bradley and Terra Ellison pace North Texas with 12.7 and 10.6 points per game, respectively. North Texas may be near the bottom of C-USA teams in scoring (13th, 61 ppg), but it doesn’t let many other teams score with ease.

North Texas ranks sixth in the league with 64.1 points allowed per game. Rice, WKU’s opponent Saturday, is the conference’s top defense allowing 60.3 points per game.

“North Texas is a very quick, athletic team that gets up and down the floor, likes to drive but can also shoot the 3,” Heard said. “They just hold people defensively and know how to guard and do different things. It’s going to be two tough games for us. Two different types of games for us.”