IRVINE — The incentive was clear as day.

If the UC Irvine women’s basketball team could beat visiting UC Davis on Thursday evening, the Anteaters would lock up a double-bye into the Big West tournament semifinals next week.

Getting to that point was never going to be easy, but UCI found a way when Nikki Tom sank a pull-up jumper with 1.6 seconds left, lifting the Anteaters to a 55-53 win over Davis at the Bren Center.

The victory gave the Anteaters (20-9 overall, 14-5 Big West) their fourth straight 20-win season and a top-two finish in the Big West regular-season standings.

With that finish comes a guaranteed trip to the tournament semifinals next Friday in Henderson, Nev.

“The double-bye was really what we were playing for today,” UCI coach Tamara Inoue said.

That prognosis didn’t look good when both teams came out of television timeout and the Aggies made two free throws to push their lead to 53-46 with 4:25 left in the game. But UC Davis didn’t score the rest of the way against a UCI team that came into the game sixth in the nation in field-goal percentage defense (35.3) and 11th in scoring defense (54.2).

“Defense, that’s something we really push,” Inoue said. “Even though we were having some empties, we were getting back and defending really well.”

Summah Hanson entered the game during the timeout and the 6-3 sophomore from Australia swished a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to four. She then sank two free throws to trim the lead to two with 3:30 still remaining.

“I thought her 3 really turned it,” Inoue said of Hanson.

Deja Lee tied it with a short jumper with 2:47 left and neither team scored again until Tom’s game-winner.

“Before the play even started, Amelia (Scharpf) told me, ‘Be ready to shoot,’ so I was really prepared,” said Tom, a four-year starter. “I just knew my teammates trusted me to have that moment.”

Tom had missed all four of her field-goal attempts and had not scored prior to her go-ahead basket.

“Nikki knows time and score, so I knew she was going to take that shot,” Inoue said. “She’s smart. The stats don’t always show how valuable she is but Nikki, by far, is the most valuable player on the team.”

Hunter Hernandez scored 12 points and Lee and Olivia Williams finished with 10 points each for UCI, which closes out the regular season against visiting UC Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon.

Megan Norris scored 15 points and Ryann Bennett contributed 12 for Davis (18-11 overall, 12-7 Big West), which had won three straight entering the game.

“I came into this league and (UC Davis coach Jennifer Gross) kicked my butt the first three or four years,” Inoue said. “Just never let off the gas, and then we started to catch them a little bit, but there’s never a game that we play that’s not competitive.”

The Anteaters missed their first three shots of the game, but then got hot, building an 11-2 lead and forcing the Aggies to burn an early timeout.