TicketsBearcats Look to Rebound at Charlotte
Contact: Geoff Wiswell
2/12/2005
Micah Harvey is the seventh Bearcat to reach 300 career assists. |
GAME FACTS:
Date: Sun., Feb. 11, 2005
Time: 2:00 p.m. ET
Site: Halton Arena (9,105)
Charlotte, N.C.
Records: Cincinnati, 7-16 (2-8 C-USA)
Charlotte, 19-5 (7-3 C-USA)
Radio: www.Charlotte49ers.com
TV: None
Live Stats: www.Charlotte49ers.com
Tickets: $5/$2, (704) 687-4949
Series: UC leads, 11-4
Last Meeting: Feb. 22, 2004 at UC
UC 80, CHA 56
SETTING THE SCENE: Cincinnati looks to recover from its lowest-scoring game in 10 years when the Bearcats face Charlotte on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. in Halton Arena. UC dropped to 7-16 overall and 2-8 in league play with a 58-31 loss at East Carolina on Friday. The 49ers suffered a 63-60, overtime setback to Louisville on Friday to fall to 7-3 in C-USA and 19-5 on the year.
CINCINNATI PROBABLE STARTERS PPG RPG APG FG%
F 1 Ashley Brown, 6-0 Fr., Wilberforce, Ohio 4.2 5.0 0.7 .384
F 14 Emy Ogide, 6-2 Fr., Rockmart, Ga. 2.0 2.0 0.1 .528
G 12 Micah Harvey, 5-7 Jr., Sardinia, Ohio 5.2 1.8 4.6 .266
G 13 Toni Slaughter, 6-0 So., Shelbyville, Ky. 9.7 6.0 1.7 .336
G 32 Karen Twehues, 6-0 So., Minusio, Switz. 9.7 2.7 1.2 .344
CHARLOTTE PROBABLE STARTERS PPG RPG APG FG%
F 3 Tameka Smith, 6-1 Fr., Dallas, Texas 7.6 5.8 1.0 .425
F 34 Andrea Davidson, 5-11 Jr., Gainesboro, Tenn. 7.5 3.8 2.7 .326
C 40 Pam Brown, 6-0 Jr., Coppell, Texas 13.8 5.8 1.0 .496
G 12 Sakellie Daniels, 5-7 Jr., Raeford, N.C. 14.1 7.3 5.1 .374
G 30 Monica League, 5-5 Sr., Nashville, Tenn. 7.3 2.4 3.6 .321
STORYLINES:
? UC stands six wins from reaching the 500-win mark in program history.
? The Bearcats are currently tied with Saint Louis and Tulane for the final spot in the C-USA Tournament. UC has never not qualified for it in the nine years of the league.
? The Bearcats and Charlotte have faced eight common opponents: Memphis, Saint Louis, DePaul, Marquette, UAB, USF, Louisville and East Carolina. The 49ers are 5-3, while UC is 2-6.
? UC has won 11 of the last 13 meetings between the schools and split six games in Halton Arena.
? This is UC's second matchup in a week with one of the highest-scoring teams in the country. Charlotte is 17th, averaging 73.9 point per game. Last Monday, the Bearcats held the nation's scoring leader, DePaul, to 67 points ? 17 points below its average.
? UC has held three of its last five opponents under 60 points.
LAST TIME VS. CHARLOTTE: Anne Stephens scored a career-high 20 points and Valerie King added 21 as Cincinnati overwhelmed Charlotte, 80-56, on Feb. 22, 2004. Charlotte made 19-of-56 field goal attempts (.339), including just 2-of-10 from behind the arc. The Bearcats put together one of their best first halves of the season, shooting .516 from the floor and holding Charlotte to .250 shooting to take a 40-21 lead into the lockerroom. Pam Brown led Charlotte with 18 points and eight rebounds.
LAST TIME IN CHARLOTTE: Cincinnati put four players in double figure scoring, but it wasn?t enough as they dropped a battle for C-USA supremacy, 67-62, on Feb. 7, 2003. K.B. Sharp came up just short in her bid for a triple-double as she paced the Bearcats with 17 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. Debbie Merrill and Valerie King each tallied 12 for the Bearcats. Peaches Harris paced the Charlotte attack with 18 points. The squads battled to a 49-49 deadlock with less than eight minutes remaining, but Charlotte took the lead for good as they ripped off seven straight points over the next two minutes of the contest.
NOTING THE EAST CAROLINA GAME:
? Micah Harvey became the seventh Bearcat to record 300 career assists.
? UC set season lows for points (31), made field goals (12) and shooting percentage (.214).
? Karen Twehues equalled her career-high with eight rebounds.
? Senior Edwina Williams made the first start of her career.
? The 31 points scored was the fewest by a UC team since 29 against Miami (Ohio) in the 1994-95 season. It is tied for the fifth-lowest scoring ever by a UC team.
HOT CAT: Anne Stephens, in particular, has been carrying UC to wins in two of its last four games. Stephens has averaged 17.0 points and 5.8 rebounds in the last five games and shot .561 (37-66) from the field. She scored a career-high 24 points in the win over Memphis, making 10-of-14 shots from the field.
SENIOR LEADERSHIP: In the middle of UC's recent struggles, Laurie Pirtle turned to senior Edwina Williams, who is 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 five games, averaging 5.0 rebounds and 3.6 points in 18.6 minutes per game. She tallied 10 points and six rebounds in the win over Marquette and has led the team in rebounds in two of the last three 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 79-65 (.549) 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 11 games UC has averaged 56.0 points per game and nearly half, 27.6, 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 301 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 42 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.
ART OF THE STEAL: Junior reserve Bellva May leads UC in steals with 37 and has recorded 20 in the last nine games. She has had four games with at least four steals. Micah Harvey is second on the team with 32, already surpassing her career best of 22.
ROAD WEARY: Of UC's last 43 losses, 27 have occurred away from Cincinnati. UC has lost 19 of its last 24 road games and nine of the last 10. The Bearcats have averaged 12.5 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 nine 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 (496) and East Carolina (495) are just ahead of 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 56 double-digit scoring games. The Marquette game last Saturday was the fifth this season in which four Bearcats reached double-figures.
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 16 games since and started the last 11, winning 10 of 11 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 returns home for the final two home games of the season, hosting Tulane on Friday, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. and Southern Miss on Sunday, Feb. 20 at 2 p.m.