TicketsBearcats Take to Road for Key Contests
Contact: Geoff Wiswell
2/9/2005
Edwina Williams has led the Bearcats in rebounding in the last two games. |
GAME FACTS:
Date: Fri., Feb. 11, 2005
Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
Site: Minges Coliseum (8,000)
Greenville, N.C.
Records: Cincinnati, 7-15 (2-7 C-USA)
East Carolina, 8-14 (4-5 C-USA)
Radio: 91.3 FM WZMB in Greenville
TV: None
Live Stats: None
Tickets: $5/$3, (252) 328-4500
Series: UC leads, 4-1
Last Meeting: Feb. 20, 2004 at UC
UC 78, ECU 72 2OT
SETTING THE SCENE: Cincinnati seeks to solidify a spot in the Conference USA Tournament when it takes on East Carolina on Friday, Feb. 11 in Greenville, N.C. at 7 p.m. ET. The Bearcats have won two of their last three games and stand at 2-7 in the league and 7-15 overall, among four teams tied for the final two tournament spots. ECU is 8-14 on the year and 4-5 in C-USA and has dropped five of its last seven games.
CINCINNATI PROBABLE STARTERS PPG RPG APG FG%
F 1 Ashley Brown, 6-0 Fr., Wilberforce, Ohio 4.4 5.1 0.8 .393
F 14 Emy Ogide, 6-2 Fr., Rockmart, Ga. 2.0 2.0 0.1 .514
G 12 Micah Harvey, 5-7 Jr., Sardinia, Ohio 5.5 1.8 4.5 .281
G 13 Toni Slaughter, 6-0 So., Shelbyville, Ky. 9.9 6.1 1.8 .338
G 32 Karen Twehues, 6-0 So., Minusio, Switz. 10.1 2.5 1.3 .354
EAST CAROLINA PROBABLE STARTERS PPG RPG APG FG%
F 22 LaToya Horton, 6-0 Jr., Hinesville, Ga. 4.6 5.8 1.0 .513
F 33 Jennifer Jackson, 5-9 Sr., Farmville, Va. 15.6 6.0 2.5 .361
C 42 Shanita Sutton, 6-0 Sr., Goldsboro, N.C. 11.1 6.1 0.3 .470
G 3 Viola Cooper, 5-8 Sr., Shawnee, Okla. 9.0 3.2 3.5 .381
G 34 Samantha Pankey, 5-7 Sr., Dilwyn, Va. 5.4 2.1 3.0 .446
STORYLINES:
? UC stands six wins from reaching the 500-win mark in program history.
? Micah Harvey is five assists from becoming the seventh Bearcat to reach the 300-assist mark for her career.
? The Bearcats and East Carolina have faced six common opponents: Memphis, Saint Louis, DePaul, Marquette, UAB and USF. The Lady Pirates are 3-3, while UC is 2-4.
? UC has won four of the five meetings between the schools, including all three since ECU joined Conference USA. The teams have split two meetings in Greenville.
LAST TIME VS. EAST CAROLINA: Valerie King scored 24 points and UC clinched a spot in the C-USA Tournament in a 78-72, double-overtime win over ECU on Feb. 20, 2004 in Fifth Third Arena. The Bearcats trailed by 14 early in the second half before holding the Lady Pirates scoreless for seven minutes in a 16-0 run. ECU held a 55-28 advantage on the boards, but made just 9-of-20 free throws. Anne Stephens had 16 points and four blocks for UC, while Courtney Willis (24 points, 19 rebounds) and Jennifer Jackson (19 points, 11 rebounds) posted double-doubles for ECU.
LAST TIME IN GREENVILLE: K.B. Sharp scored her 1,000th point and became UC?s all-time leader in minutes played as the Bearcats outscored East Carolina, 83-69, on Feb. 9, 2003. Sharp scored 17 points and Debbie Merrill posted a season-high 28 points with 10 rebounds. The Bearcats shot 65 percent in the first half to take a 43-33 halftime lead. In the second half, the Pirates pulled within six with 13:56 left, but the Bearcats used a 15-2 run to extend the lead to 19 with nine minutes left and ECU never got within 10. Jennifer Jackson made 10-of-17 shots for 29 points to lead ECU.
NOTING THE DE PAUL GAME:
? UC held DePaul, who came into the game averaging a nation-best 84.1 points per game, to its fourth-lowest total of the season (67).
? Edwina Williams set career highs for rebounds (8) and assists (2).
? Micah Harvey handed out 10 assists, her second-straight double-digit assist game. She moved into seventh in UC history with 295 career assists.
? Karen Twehues made five three-pointers, the fourth time in her career she has made five or more in a game.
HOT CATS: Anne Stephenes and Karen Twehues, in particular, are responsible for the recent success of UC in winning two of its last three games. Stephens has averaged 18.0 points in the last four games and shot .571 (32-56) from the field. Twehues has made 9-of-18 three-pointers in the last two games to average 15.5 points in the games.
SENIOR LEADERSHIP: In the middle of UC's recent struggles, Laurie Pirtle turned to senior Edwina Williams, who was a favorite among her teammates but had played in only 10 games in her two and a half seasons of eligibility. Williams has responded in the last four games, averaging 6.0 rebounds and 4.5 points in 18 minutes per game. She tallied 10 points and six rebounds in the win over Marquette and has led the team in rebounds each of the last two games.
CONFERENCE USA SUCCESS: The Bearcats are one of seven teams to have a conference record over .500 throughout the history of Conference USA. UC is 79-64 (.552) in the 10-year history of the league, posting winning league marks in the five years before last year. The Bearcats were 12-4 in the 1998-99 season to claim the regular season championship.
JOINING AN EXCLUSIVE CLUB: Karen Twehues has made 51 three-pointers this year, 10 short of eighth-place in UC's single-season records. Once there, she will break up the monopoly of Valerie King and Jolinda Lewis on the list as that pair owns the top eight seasons in school history.
HELP OFF THE BENCH: In the last 10 games UC has averaged 58.5 points per game and nearly half, 28.3, have come from the bench. Anne Stephens has averaged a team-best 12.9 points per game in this span and Bellva May has had three double-digit scoring games, both as reserves.
TOP 10 CATS: Juniors Anne Stephens and Micah Harvey and sophomore Karen Twehues are seeing the results of their careers in the UC record books. Stephens now has 41 career blocks to rank ninth in school history. Harvey has handed out 295 assists in her career, which is seventh all-time by a Bearcat. Harvey's 135 assists last season was the eighth-best single-season total in UC history. Twehues has made 79 three-pointers in just 41 career games to move into fifth in UC annals.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE: UC currently has played the 32nd-toughest schedule as ranked by the WBCA/Summerville RPI. The Bearcats' schedule, which features 14 games this year against teams that reached the postseason in 2004, was ranked as the 38th toughest prior to the season. UC's 2004-05 opponents had a combined 438-326 record for a .573 winning percentage last year.
YOUTH MOVEMENT: The Bearcats opened the season with a combined total of 71 games of starting experience. Anne Stephens (25) and Micah Harvey (24) accounted for 49 of those. For comparison, last year?s team brought 229 games of starting experience into the 2003-04 campaign. Nine of the players on the 2004-05 roster are in just their first or second year at UC.
UNQUESTIONED LEADER: Head Coach Laurie Pirtle is UC's all-time leader in coaching wins and on Feb. 21, 2002, she earned her 250th win leading the Bearcats. She and DePaul's Doug Bruno are the only C-USA coaches with at least 275 wins at their current school. On Feb. 20, 2004 against East Carolina she became the 54th active coach to win 350 games in a career.
ROAD WEARY: Of UC's last 42 losses, 26 have occurred away from Cincinnati. UC has lost 18 of its last 23 road games and eight of the last nine. The Bearcats have averaged 10 fewer points scored on the road this year than at home.
CLOSE CALLS: UC was 3-8 last year in games decided by eight points or fewer, but won on two of the last three occasions. The Bearcats are 2-5 in such games this season, which include five of the last eight games. The Bearcats lost 16 games last year by an average of just 8.6 points.
APPROACHING MILESTONE: Now in its 34th season of play, UC has won 494 games. The Bearcats who began the year vying to become the first women's teams in Conference USA to reach 500 all-time victories. Houston and Southern Miss accomplished the feat last week. Louisville (495) and East Carolina (494) are right with UC.
BALANCED ATTACK: UC has gotten contributions from a number of different sources offensively. Five different players have led UC in scoring and nine different players have recorded a total of 55 double-digit scoring games. The Marquette game last Saturday was the fifth this season in which four Bearcats reached double-figures.
BLOCK PARTY: UC recorded 15 total blocked shots against Arkansas and UAB. The eight against the Lady Blazers was the second-highest single-game total in school history, trailing only the 12 rejections against Miami (Ohio) in Dec. 1983. Anne Stephens and Emy Ogide had 11 blocks in the two games. The Bearcats are averaging 3.2 blocks per game this year, on pace for 86, threatening the school record of 96 held by that 1983-84 squad.
RAPID RETURN: Sophomore Treasure Humphries underwent surgery for a torn ACL in late August and astounded all by making it back to the court in a little under four months. UC's steals leader and fourth-leading scorer last year, she made her debut at Middle Tennessee State on Dec. 29 and scored eight points in 11 minutes with two steals. Humphries averaged 7.8 points in her first four games with a high of 11 points at USF.
POSTSEASON TRADITION: The Bearcats have reached postseason tourney play seven straight times, with this era accounting for all but two of the postseason appearances in school history. Four of the seven have been to the WNIT, including last year. The seven-season streak is the longest active streak in Conference USA.
EMERGING EMY: Freshman Emy Ogide (pronounced A-mee O-giday) played in just three of the first six games, recording one point and one rebound. Pressed into extended action against Xavier because of injuries, she responded with two points, three rebounds and two blocks. She has played in all 15 games since and started the last 10, winning nine of 10 jump balls. She had a career day against Arkansas, setting new bests with eight points, nine rebounds, four blocks and two assists.
HOME SWEET HOME: Since Fifth Third Arena became the home of UC basketball in 1989, the Bearcats have gone 148-82 (.643) on their home court. Over the past seven years they have an outstanding home record of 101-28 (.783). UC went 15-1 at home in 2001-02, the best-ever mark. The Bearcats put together a school-record 21-game home win streak from Jan. 1, 2002 until a loss to Tulane on Feb. 2, 2003.
SIDELINED AGAIN: Leslie Knoch, who missed 39 games over her first two seasons due to injuries, has been bitten by the bug again. She is currently out indefinitely with a stress fracture. A leader on and off the court, she was having a career year before the injury. She is one of four team captains and has started 16 games this year, the first starts of her career. She has scored in double-figures five times this season, with a career high 20 points in the comeback win over Ball State. She ranks 13th in C-USA in three-pointers made (1.35/g) and 11th in three-point percentage (.333).
A DAY FOR THANKS: The day before Thanksgiving left much to be thankful for in Bearcat basketball at Fifth Third Arena. In the afternoon, the UC women came back from a 14-point deficit with fewer than nine minutes left to top Ball State, 62-58. Leslie Knoch's career-high 20 points led the comeback effort. Later that night, the men trailed Northern Iowa by 18 with 10 minutes left, but UC evened the score and eventually won, 76-70, in double overtime. The greatest comeback in Fifth Third Arena history was led by Jihad Muhammad's 23 points, nine coming in the final 2:50 of regulation.
DEFENSIVE LOCKDOWN: The 31 points scored by Detroit in UC's 60-31 win on Nov. 21 was the 11th-fewest ever allowed by the Bearcats. It was the lowest total by a UC opponent since Robert Morris scored 29 on Nov. 20, 2001. It was also the fewest points ever scored by Detroit. The seven blocked shots by the Bearcats equalled the second-best UC single-game total at the time.
POWER CONFERENCE: Last year Conference USA produced an all-time high of 17 postseason basketball teams (6 NCAA Men, 4 NCAA Women, 2 NIT, 5 WNIT). Only the Big East with 19 (6 NCAA Men, 8 NCAA women, 4 NIT and 1 WNIT) and the Big 12 with 18 (4 NCAA Men, 7 NCAA Women, 5 NIT and 2 WNIT) produced more postseason basketball teams last March.
UP NEXT: UC plays at Charlotte on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. before returning home to host Tulane on Friday, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m.