East Carolina Women's Hoops Travels to Loyola Tuesday Night
December 08, 2014 | Women's Basketball
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GREENVILLE, N.C. - The East Carolina women's basketball team will put a close to its three-game road trip and play its final non-conference game away from home when it heads to Baltimore for a matchup with Loyola University (Md.) on Tuesday, Dec. 9 at Reitz Arena. Opening tip is scheduled for 7 p.m.
The meeting will be the second in as many years between the two programs, as ECU collected a 68-47 win in the first-ever matchup between the two last November in Greenville. Jada Payne scored a game-high 26 points on 8-for-12 shooting, including a 5-for-6 clip from beyond the arc, and grabbed seven rebounds in the winning effort.
The Pirates (7-2) recently split a pair of road games in Ohio, falling by two at Cleveland State last Thursday, before bouncing back to hand Ohio University its first loss of the season, 76-68, on Saturday. Payne scored 21 points against the Vikings and followed up that performance with 22 against the Bobcats en route to being named to the American Athletic Conference's weekly honor roll for the second time this season.
Loyola (1-6) will host East Carolina in its second home game of the season and is coming off a victory in its home opener, a 56-49 win over Mount St. Mary's on Saturday, The Greyhounds are averaging just 52.6 points per game through its first seven contests this season, while shooting 31.9 percent from the floor and 32.6 percent from beyond the 3-point line. Their opponents are averaging nearly 70 points per game and shoot just shy of 47 percent from the field.
PICKING POCKETS
The Pirates enter the week beginning Monday, Dec. 8 ranked sixth in the nation in steals per game with an average of 14.2. They totaled 21 steals in the season-opening win over Fairfield, and have recorded 12 or more in seven of their nine games this season.
COUNTDOWN TO 200
Head coach Heather Macy, in her 10th season as a head coach and fifth at ECU, entered the season with 187-career wins and is now just six victories away from 200 for her career.
BEATING THE UNBEATEN
East Carolina defeated Ohio, 76-68, on its home court Saturday night, Dec. 6, handing the Bobcats their first loss of the 2014-15 season. Ohio had been one of just 17 remaining NCAA Division I teams with an unblemished record prior to the Pirates' victory.
PAYNE CONTINUES TO DRAIN
Redshirt junior and preseason All-American Athletic Conference selection Jada Payne broke ECU's single-season record for three-pointers made with 70 in 2013-14. With three triples at Cleveland State on Dec. 4, she moved into eighth place on the program's all-time list, and after making four more in the win at Ohio on Dec. 6, Payne is now just four 3's from becoming the eighth player in program history to make 100 in her career.
BLOCKBUSTER
Senior post player Ondrea Shaw tied her career-high with seven blocked shots in the 66-38 blowout of Rhode Island on Nov. 15. She also posted seven blocks at Bethune Cookman on Dec. 29, 2013. Shaw established herself among the nation's top shot-blockers at 3.26 per game, in 2013-14, which ranked ninth. Her 124 rejections are 25 behind Monique Pompili (1984-88) for second place and just 88 behind Marcia Girven's (1977-81) school record of 212.
