A year ago, there were snickers in the back hallways of Bobcats Arena. The swaggering Bears had lost in the CIAA Tournament for the first time in four seasons and for the first time in four years didn't wear the league crown.

There's not much snickering anymore. Shaw ravaged Fayetteville State 87-74 Friday afternoon in the semifinals of the CIAA Women's Tournament to reach tonight's title game against Johnson C. Smith.

"Just getting there is not good enough," Curtis said after watching his team dismantle Fayetteville State for a half and then hold on in the second. "I said it last year, I'm saying it now. We're going to win it."

After losing in last year's tournament, Curtis and the Bears started talking bigger and playing better.

"It's all about redemption from last year. It left a bad taste in our mouths," Shaw senior forward Nicky Souter said. "I've been there before, but [today] I'm going to play like we've never been there before."

Curtis, who vowed last year to win tonight, lost many of the flashy stars who had helped Shaw win their titles.

Shaw finished the season with the league's best record but wasn't the dominating, run-the-score-up team it had been in the past. That is, until Friday, when Shaw beat up the Broncos from the opening tipoff.

The Bears were so good in the first half, the game seemed choreographed. For a long first-half stretch, the Bears forced a turnover or a missed shot on every Broncos possession and jumped to a 25-point lead just before the half.

"I wasn't shocked at all with the way we were playing, because this is the way we play," Shaw junior guard Celanese Bozeman said. "This is just us."

Curtis hopes to have the first-half Bears today rather than the team that let the Broncos cut a 32-point, second-half lead to 69-59 in about seven minutes of play, forcing Curtis to call a rage-filled timeout.

"The girls came out early ready to play. ... The second half we lost some focus," Curtis said. "But the [Broncos'] run got the lead a little lower than we wanted it to."

Fayetteville State coach Eric Tucker said it is hard to play from behind against Shaw.

"Today was not a day to climb up out of it against a team as good as Shaw," Tucker said. "But [the Broncos] could have laid down, we were down almost 30 points."

Shaw sophomore guard Jan'el Baxter used to read about all of Shaw's championships when she played at Cary Academy. Now she has a chance to be a part of one.

"I knew it was a high standard. I knew it would be hard to be better than the ones who came before us, and Coach is a hard person to please," said Baxter, who grabbed five rebounds and scored nine points Friday. It's more pressure on us to get another one."

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