If regular-season Jordan Walker’s 41 points in the season finale were any indication of his readiness for postseason play, tournament Jordan “Jelly” Walker left no doubt following yet another impressive shooting display to open the league tournament.

“He (Kennedy) does a great job of drawing stuff up for me and my teammates do a great job of finding me,” Walker said. “I just knock down the shots.”

The Blazers had four players score in double figures, led by Walker, and dominated the defensive end en route to an 87-60 victory over Rice in the C-USA tournament quarterfinals, Thursday, March, 9, at the Star in Frisco, Texas.

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UAB entered the game at 58 in the NCAA NET and improves to 24-8 overall — winning seven straight and 11 of its last 12 games – after completing a three-game sweep of the Owls.

“The goal is obviously to get the bye so you can win three in three, as opposed to four in four, but I’ve always felt that the team that had just come off a win has a little bit of an advantage,” UAB head coach Andy Kennedy said. “The first time over half of our team had been in this building was 30 minutes prior to the game. We’ve been sitting in that hotel all day and I knew we were going to be a little bit sluggish.”

“They had seen the ball go in the basket, they won an emotional game last night and Rice came out with the right approach,” he added. “At the end of the half, we spurted them. Defensively, we were turning them over early. When we weren’t turning them over, they were dicing us up with their continuity offense.”

The Blazers were 50.8 percent from the field, 50 percent on 3-pointers and 16-for-21 on free-throw attempts. They dominated the interior with a plus-16 advantage on inside scoring and forced 21 turnovers that resulted in 23 points.

More impressive than any other trend or statistic, UAB outrebounded Rice 26-2 on the Owls’ offensive glass.

“The second half was a completely different game,” Kennedy said. “We become much more disruptive defensively. We were making shots pretty much for the entire game but defense was the key in the second half. We got disruptive and the game got away from them.”

Walker finished with a game-high 27 points — shooting 7-of-13 overall, 7-of-11 from beyond the arc and a perfect 6-for-6 at the charity stripe — while adding two rebounds, two assists and two steals. The senior had 12 points in the first half and hit four consecutive 3-pointers during an 18-4 run in the second half.

Walker’s seven 3-pointers give the senior guard 305 for his career.

“Rice was a little bit fatigued and backing off of him some,” Kennedy said. “If you let him rhythm into it, you’re rolling the dice and he’s as good as there is in the country in striking off the dribble.”

“We talked about it and started moving our offense down a little bit because they were sliding under a lot of the ball-screen stuff,” he added. “They weren’t as aggressive as we anticipated. As a result, Jelly got into a rhythm and when he gets into a rhythm, we’re going to ride him.”

Trey “The Mayor” Jemison produced his league-leading ninth double-double of the season, scoring 12 points and grabbing 10 rebounds while adding two steals and a block, and KJ Buffen finished with 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting, 2-of-3 on 3-pointers, and added three boards and three steals to his line.

“We’ve been pretty good off the offensive glass all year, as a matter of fact, I think we lead the nation in most offensive rebounds,” Kennedy said. “Defensively, we’ve gotten better. Our first shot D has gotten better and as a result, we’re cleaning up things. We’ve got big physical guys in there and they played like it tonight.”

The Blazers jumped out to an 11-5 lead in the first five minutes but Rice responded with an 11-0 run to take its only lead of the game during a three-minute stretch. UAB countered with a 16-2 run to flip the advantage back to double digits and ended on an 8-0 run after the Owls closed the gap to two points with 1:17 remaining in the half.

“It gave us a little juice,” Kennedy said. “We started the game decently, had a little bit of a lull and had to fight our way back. We couldn’t string together consecutive stops but the 1-3-1 zone was effective for us. We ran through some balls, got out in the open floor and we turned them over. That’s where we have to live.”

Rice opened the second half by trimming the deficit to six points in the first three minutes but never came that close again. The Blazers took control on a game-clinching 26-7 run powered by 15 points from Walker and built as much as a 32-point lead on an 11-0 run in the final minutes.

“We’ve been here before so we know what to expect,” Walker said. “It definitely feels good to be in this position again, to get the first win under your belt. That’s the most difficult game because you’re sitting around and waiting the whole day. We got a big one tomorrow and I’m ready to prove even more.”

Eric Gaines finished with 10 points, six rebounds and six assists, followed by Ty Brewer with nine points and five boards. Tony Toney had six points, Tavin Lovan had five points and Javian Davis contributed two points, two rebounds and three assists.

The Blazers advance to face North Texas in the C-USA semifinals, Friday, March 10, with tip-off scheduled for 2 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network.