College of Charleston (6-18, 5-10 SoCon) at Chattanooga (16-7, 11-3 SoCon)

Game #25

February 11, 2012, 5:00 p.m. (ET)

McKenzie Arena (11,218)

Chattanooga, Tenn.  

CHARLESTON, S.C. - The College of Charleston women's basketball team continues its difficult stretch as they go on the road to play Chattanooga Feb. 11 and Samford on Feb. 13.

OPENING TIP

 The Cougars played a hard fought game against the No. 1 team in the SoCon standings, Appalachian State on Monday, but fell 50-41. Alyssa Frye led the team with 14 points and Jillian Brown handed out five assists. Freshman Mikaela Hopkins contributed with 10 rebounds, seven points and six blocks. The Cougars scored seven of the first nine points of the game and were tied with the Mountaineers at 21-21 at halftime. For the game CofC forced Appalachian State into 21 turnovers and had 11 blocks and 11 steals as a team.     

THE COACHES

College of Charleston

Nancy Wilson

Career Record: 541-360 (30^th year)

CofC Record: 310-211 (17^th year)

Chattanooga

Wes Moore

Career Record: 523-162 (23^rd)

ASU Record: 323-106 (14^th)

THE SERIES

Chattanooga leads the all-time series 25-8.

LAST TIME VS. CHATTANOOGA

The Cougars last played Chattanooga on Jan. 7 at home with the Mocs taking the 58-44 victory. Latisha Harris had a monster game with 19 points and 11 rebounds for the Cougars. Chattanooga was led by Whitney Hood with 16 points and held a 20-6 advantage in points off turnovers. Jillian Brown had six assists for the Cougars, but turned the ball over seven times. The game was tied 29-29 at halftime before Chattanooga outscored the Cougars 29-15 in the second half to pull away for the victory.

WINNING WITH WILSON

College of Charleston head coach Nancy Wilson will retire after this season as the winningest women's basketball coach at the College. Wilson is in her 30^th year overall and 17^th at the College of Charleston. Wilson has won 310 games at CofC and 541 for her career.

4 IN DOUBLE DIGITS

In the Cougars game, vs. Central Michigan four players scored in double-figures, led by junior Megan Fischer with 14 points and nine rebounds. Also scoring in double-figures were Cathryn Hardy (13), Christy Hewatt (11) and Latisha Harris (11).

DOUBLE TROUBLE

Junior Latisha Harris has recorded a SoCon high six double-doubles on the season, her most recent coming against Elon with 10 points and 13 rebounds.

DOUBLE DIGIT SCORING  

The Cougars have had at least one player score in double-figures in 13 of their last 14 games. In six of the 14 games multiple players have scored in double-figures. Junior Latisha Harris has the most double-digit games in that stretch, scoring at least 10 points in eight of the 14 games.

SWEET 16

Down 13-3 early in the game vs. Samford, the Cougars came back in a hurry as they went on a 16-0 run sparked by three 3-point field goals (Hardy, Hewatt and Brown), a bucket and a foul (Hardy), two more free-throws (Hardy) and a layup (Harris), to go up 19-13.

DEFENDING THE THREE

The Cougars rank 28^th  in NCAA DI women's basketball in 3-point FG defense, allowing opponents to shoot just 26.5 percent (108-407).

RE-WRITING THE RECORD BOOKS

The Cougars have had several record breaking performances and top-10 marks this season. In addition to the team record of 15 blocks, in the win over Wofford junior Latisha Harris grabbed 19 rebounds, second most all-time in a single-game. In the same game junior Cathryn Hardy tied the third best mark for free-throws in a game with 13 and tied the second best mark for free-throws attempted in a game with 15.

SHOWING IMPROVEMENT

The Cougars have shown improvement in several categories over their last 14 games.

First 10 games ..............Last 14 games

44.2......................PPG............................47.6

.289......................FG%.......................... .306

6.8....................Assists/g........................9.6

25.9......................TOs/g.........................19.3

-4.1..............Rebound Margin...............+2.1

IMPROVEMENT

With several players lost from last year many athletes are stepping up this year.

Player     Points Last Year   Points This Year

Harris      139 (29 games)   200 (24 games)

Hardy     143 (30 games)   183 (24 games)

Brown    64 (30 games)      83 (24 games)

Hicks      8 (18 games)         34 (9 games)

DISHING EM OUT

Sophomore point guard Jillian Brown plays the most minutes on the team and is a key to the Cougar offense. This season she has recorded six or more assists in eight games, including two 10 assist games (vs. Wingate-1/2 and at Wofford-1/21) Brown ranks fifth in the Southern Conference in assists per game at 4.0.

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