A short memory will be important for the Lady Toppers.

With an opportunity to claim at least a share of the Conference USA regular-season championship, Western Kentucky’s pursuit of that title fell short with two straight losses at Southern Mississippi and Texas-El Paso to close the regular season.

Now a new goal and a fresh start awaits.

WKU (21-8 overall, 12-4 C-USA) will try to repeat as the C-USA Tournament champions in the league’s postseason tournament this week at The Star in Frisco, Texas.

“I know Ivy (Brown) and Tashia (Brown) don’t want to end off the way we just played and we have to make sure everyone else is on that same page,” WKU coach Michelle Clark-Heard told the Daily News on Sunday. “At the end of the day we were in both games, but we just didn’t play the way we wanted to be playing in February. Thursday is a new season, we’re the No. 2 seed and we’re excited about it.”

Before the two-game road stretch, the Lady Toppers looked well on their way to another regular-season title after Tashia Brown dropped a career-high 38 points against Charlotte on Feb. 23 in WKU’s third straight win by at least 16 points.

WKU then went on the road with a relaxed defense that allowed USM and UTEP to shoot over 50 percent from the field. The Miners shot 74 percent in the second half of their 80-75 win over WKU on Saturday, and Ivy Brown matched her season-high of 31 points.

WKU hadn’t lost two straight to close the regular season since Heard’s first year coaching WKU in 2012-13. Since then, the Lady Toppers had closed out the season with at least a four-game winning streak.

“Obviously, we had a chance to win a regular-season championship or a share and we just didn’t play that well,” Heard said. “What I’m feeling now is this is a whole new season coming up. We have two of the best players in the league and we’ve got to get our supporting cast and guard. We didn’t get stops when we needed to get stops and we dictated our game on if we made shots.”

As the No. 2 seed behind regular-season champions UAB, WKU has a first-round bye and will play the winner of No. 7 Florida Atlantic vs. No. 10 Texas-San Antonio in the quarterfinals at 1:30 p.m. CST Thursday.

Should the Lady Toppers advance to the semifinals, they’ll play either No. 3 Louisiana Tech, No. 6 Charlotte or No. 11 North Texas.

Filling the other side of the bracket are No. 1 UAB and No. 4 Middle Tennessee with first-round byes, followed by No. 5 Rice, No. 8 Southern Miss, No. 9 UTEP and No. 12 Old Dominion.

WKU cruised to a C-USA title in 2017, with all three tournament wins coming by double digits. Kendall Noble and Micah Jones were the cornerstones of that veteran team, with the Brown duo adding a dangerous one-two punch in the mix.

This year, it’s been the Browns and a mix of inconsistency the rest of the way with a young squad. Tashia Brown’s 22.9 points per game leads C-USA, and the Lake Park, Ga., native is the favorite to win the C-USA Player of the Year honor. Ivy Brown is second with 16.9 points and a team-best 9.8 rebounds per game, then production drops off from there.

Redshirt sophomore Dee Givens has been a force off the bench in C-USA play with a 10.5 points per game average, followed by freshman Raneem Elgedawy’s 8.5 points and 4.9 rebounds per contest. Givens and Elgedawy are candidates for the league’s Sixth Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year honor, respectively.

Heard said although the season didn’t end well and inconsistency is a current issue, she has to remember the same young unit produced a body of work that got WKU to a No. 2 seed in the C-USA Tournament.

That success – not the two straight losses – gives the coach hope in pulling off another championship run.

“I think when you look at it, we’ve put ourselves in position to get to that point,” Heard said. “It was only two teams that had an opportunity to win a regular-season championship and we were one of them. … It’s a good testament to how this team has grown and I’m very confident that we’re going to come back and be ready to go in practice.”{&end}