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The University of Regina's women's basketball team plays its final Canada West home games of the season this weekend, as the Cougars host Lethbridge on Friday and Saturday (6:15 p.m.) at the Centre for Kinesiology, Health & Sport.

The No. 4-ranked Cougars are virtually assured of hosting a Canada West quarterfinal series, as they just need to win one of their four remaining games to lock down at least a second-place finish in the Prairie Division standings and home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. After this weekend, they finish off the conference slate on Feb. 15 and Feb. 16 at Brandon (0-18).

Though the Cougars and Calgary enter the weekend with identical 15-3 records atop the Prairie Division, the Dinos hold the tiebreaker over the U of R based on a superior record against division opponents and will finish ahead of the Cougars if they end up with the same conference mark. Complicating the matter is the fact that the seeding rules for the Canada West Final Four differ from the regular season standings tiebreakers, so a team could very conceivably finish in second place in its division and still host the Final Four – even if the first-place team also advances past the quarterfinals.

The Cougars and Dinos met last weekend in Calgary. The Cougars needed a weekend sweep to pull ahead of Calgary in the Prairie Division standings and won 76-72 on Friday, but the Dinos replied with a 79-68 victory of their own on Saturday. Brittany Read had a fine weekend for the Cougars, collecting double-doubles in both games and tying her career high for rebounds (18) in Friday's win. For the weekend, Read led the U of R with 33 points and 28 rebounds.

Read is enjoying another great season for the Cougars, as she leads the conference with a .596 field goal percentage. She's in elite company there, as only U of R legends Jackie Moore and Corrin Wersta have shot better in a season in Cougar history. Read enters the weekend with 640 career rebounds and with four games left on the schedule, needs 23 to pass Chelsea Cassano for second place on the school's career charts and needs 31 more boards to surpass Moore as the U of R's all-time leader in the category.

Read is one of three fifth-year Cougars on the roster, as the team will also honour Lindsay Ledingham and Danielle Schmidt as part of Senior Night on Saturday. Ledingham became the University of Regina's 10th 1000-point scorer two weekends ago and needs 36 points to pass Cassano and Deanne Shmyr for eighth on the school's all-time points list, while Schmidt – a three-year starter for the Cougars – has over 600 career points for the U of R. The Cougars will also recognize the contributions of Michelle Clark, who will receive her Master of Business Administration from the Kenneth Levene Graduate School of Business this spring and won't be back despite still having a season of CIS eligibility remaining past this year. Clark only played for two seasons with the Cougars, but ranks sixth in school history with a career average of 14.6 points per game.

Lethbridge (10-8) comes into the weekend riding a five-game winning streak. The Pronghorns are one of three teams battling for the final two playoff berths in the Prairie Division, as they'll go into Friday's action tied with Alberta for fourth place and one game back of third-place Saskatchewan. Lethbridge will be keeping an eye on the out-of-town scoreboard, as Alberta plays at Winnipeg this weekend and Saskatchewan also travels east for a pair of games against Manitoba. Alberta and Saskatchewan finish the Canada West schedule against each other next weekend, while Lethbridge closes out the conference slate with a home-and-home against Calgary.

Third-year guard Ali Cameron comes in as Lethbridge's leading scorer, averaging 15.5 points per game. Two other Pronghorns also average in double figures, including third-year forward Kim Veldman (12.2 ppg) and fifth-year forward Erin Skippon (11.7).

Both games this weekend will be webcast live at www.canadawest.tv.

NOTES: The Cougars have an 18-5 advantage in Canada West games played between the two teams ... counting two victories in the 2010 postseason, the Cougars have won 12 consecutive games over Lethbridge in a streak that dates back to 2005.