Orange Women's Basketball Looks to Rebound Versus Albany
12/7/2004 10:09:32 AM | Women's Basketball
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The SU women's basketball team will try to match last season's win total when it hosts the Albany Great Danes on Tuesday, Dec. 7 at Manley Field House. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. The Orange enter the game with a 5-1 mark. Syracuse won six games all of last season.
SU will get its first chance to test its resiliency. The Orange suffered its first loss of the season on Saturday, losing at Massachusetts, 52-51. Chineze Nwagbo had a career-day in the loss. She scored a career-high 19 points and tied her career best with 14 rebounds. It was her third double-double of the season and 11th of her career. Rochelle Coleman added a season-best 11 points off the bench and Lauren Kohn hit three three-pointers for nine points. Syracuse shot just 31.5 percent from the field. SU will be trying to reverse a recent trend. The Orange has suffered another loss in the next game following its first defeat in each of the past three seasons. The last time Syracuse rebounded with a win after its first loss was in 2000-01 when the team defeated Long Island on the road after a loss to 22nd-ranked North Carolina.
Nwagbo is off to a stellar start averaging 15.8 points and a BIG EAST-best 9.7 rebounds per game. She is one of only two players (Michele Campbell, Rutgers) to rank among the league's top 10 scorers and rebounders. Kohn is also averaging in double figures at 11.3 points per game. She has made nine three-pointers in her last two games and ranks third in the league at 2.33 per game. Freshmen Sara Antolick and Jessica Richter are tied for third on the team in scoring at 7.7 points per game. Antolick is the BIG EAST's third-best rebounding freshman at 7.7 boards per contest, while Richter is second among league rookies with 2.3 steals per game. Coleman is SU's highest-scoring reserve at 7.3 points per game. She has contributed defensively as well. Coleman ranks third in the BIG EAST with 2.67 steals per game.
Just like the Orange, Albany is off to its best start since the 1997-98 season. The Great Danes are 4-1 after defeating Bucknell, 64-37, on Saturday. Danielle Hutcheson and Maree Jones each had double-doubles versus the Bison. Jones had 14 points and 10 rebounds, while Hutcheson finished with 13 points and 10 boards. Jen Schumacher scored 13 points, her fourth double-digit effort of the season. The Great Danes have three starters averaging at least 14.0 points per game. Schumacher is tops at 14.6 points per game. She is the Great Danes’ biggest threat from long range, hitting 14-of-31 from three (.452). As a team, Albany is shooting 38.0 percent from deep (19-of-50). Jones is averaging 14.2 points per game, while Hutcheson is scoring 14.0 per night and leads the team with an 8.6 per game rebounding average. Albany has hung its hat on defense all season. The Great Danes are giving up just 53.4 points per game and limiting opponents to 34.7 percent from the field. Offensively, Albany is scoring 69.4 points per night. All four of the Great Danes’ wins have been by at least 16 points, including the 27-point victory versus Bucknell. It was the largest margin of victory for Albany since moving to Division I. The Great Danes are in their fourth season in the America East.
Tonight’s game is the first meeting between Syracuse and Albany in women’s basketball. SU head coach Keith Cieplicki is 4-0 all-time versus the Great Danes, all the wins coming at Vermont.
A TALE OF TWO SHOOTING NIGHTS
Syracuse cruised to an 80-60 win against Binghamton by shooting 56.1 percent (32-for-57) from the floor, including 53.3 percent from three-point range (8-for-15). SU continued its good three-point shooting at Massachusetts, hitting 7-of-17 (41.2) from three, but converted only 10-of-37 from inside the arc. Chineze Nwagbo made 6-of-12 of those shots, leaving the rest of the team just 4-for-25 (16.0) from inside three-point range. Since the start of the 2001-02 season, SU is 29-10 when shooting better than their opponents and 5-30 when on the opposite end of the field goal percentage numbers. SU is 9-3 in the last three seasons when hitting at least half its shots.
A DOUBLE-DOUBLE OF CAREER PROPORTIONS
Chineze Nwagbo scored a career-high 19 points and tied a career best with 14 rebounds at Massachusetts. It was her third double-double of the season and 11th of her career. Nwagbo leads the BIG EAST with three double-doubles. She had 12 points and 10 rebounds against Yale and 15 points and 13 rebounds against Quinnipiac. Prior to the Yale game, her last double-double effort was a 17-point, 12-rebound performance against West Virginia on January 24, 2004. She has reached the double-figure mark in rebounds 12 times in her career.
