Gameday: East Carolina Set To Challenge No. 1 UConn Wednesday Night

Wednesday, January 4

Hartford, CT

7 PM

East Carolina University

No. 1 Connecticut

Gameday: East Carolina Set To Challenge No. 1 UConn Wednesday Night

January 03, 2017 | Women's Basketball

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Game 15: East Carolina at No. 1 UConn
Date	Wednesday, Jan. 4
Time	7:00 p.m. (ET)
Location	Hartford, Conn. (XL Center)
Coverage	Live Stats \\\ ESPN3 \\\ WZMB Radio \\\ East Carolina Game Notes
Social Media	Twitter: @ECUScoreboard \\\ @ECUWomensHoops \\\ #2FTN \\\ ECUndaunted

GREENVILLE, N.C. – East Carolina continues its American Athletic Conference slate Wednesday evening with a matchup against No. 1 UConn. The Pirates and Huskies will tip at 7 p.m. inside the XL Center in Hartford.

ECU fell to Tulane 61-45 in its AAC opener Saturday, losing for just the second time at home this season. The Pirates take a 1-2 road record into the contest with a win over Richmond and losses at Charlotte and William and Mary.

Kristen Gaffney, who has reached the 20-point plateau five times this campaign, leads the offense as she is scoring 16.4 points per game – good for seventh best in the American Conference. She is also averaging a team-best 6.6 rebounds per outing as well as shooting the ball at an AAC third-best 57.1 percent from the field. Bre McDonald is the second-leading scorer for East Carolina, putting up 12.1 points a night to go along with a 6.3 rebounding average.

Collectively, the Pirates rank third in the league in assists per game (14.9) as well as fourth in scoring offense (67.9), field goal percentage (.432) and three-point field goal percentage (.347). ECU is also holding opponents to just 27.9 percent efficiency from beyond the arc – the third-best mark in the conference.

Scouting the Huskies
Four-time defending national champion UConn has won 88-straight games entering Wednesday night's game and is 64-0 all-time against American Athletic Conference teams. The Huskies rolled to an 84-48 victory at UCF in their league opener Sunday. UConn is averaging 80.8 points per game and is out-scoring its opponents by 23.2 points per outing. In terms of rebounding, the Huskies are a +3.7 and are averaging 37.3 boards a night. Katie Lou Samuelson paces the offensive efforts for UConn, ranking second in the AAC and 18th nationally at 20.2 points per game. A total of four Huskies are averaging double figures in the scoring column. Collectively, the Huskies are third among NCAA Division I teams in shooting percentage (50.1 percent) while also firing at a 42.0 percent clip from beyond the arc (second nationally) and putting in 76.3 percent of their free throw attempts. UConn is 2-0 inside the XL Center this season in regular season play, defeating Chattanooga (80-43) and Ohio State (82-63).

The Series
UConn has won all six meetings in the short series with East Carolina. All six encounters have occurred since the Pirates joined the American Athletic Conference prior to the 2014-15 campaign.

Last Time Out (Dec. 31)
A stagnant shooting performance by East Carolina in the second and third quarters allowed Tulane to pull away for a 61-45 victory in the American Athletic Conference opener for both teams Saturday afternoon at Minges Coliseum. Kristen Gaffney paced the Pirates offensively once more, scoring a game-high 18 points on 8-for-14 shooting from the field to go along with a team-best eight rebounds, while Khadidja Toure netted nine points and pulled down three rebounds. ECU hit just 17 of 58 attempts from the field to shoot a season-low 29.3 percent while Tulane converted 23 of its 61 for 37.7 percent. The teams played to a near dead heat on the glass as the Green Wave recorded 42 rebounds to the Pirates' 41. Tulane forced 17 East Carolina turnovers while committing 14 itself. The Green Wave bench also out-scored the ECU reserves by a 23-6 margin.

Macy Ascending On ECU All-Time Coaching Wins List
Heather Macy now owns the second-most wins by a head coach in program history. With 11 more victories, she will surpass Sharon Baldwin-Tener (2002-10), who tops the list with 126.

Holston Nominated For NABC Good Works Team
Holston was named a nominee for the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Good Works Team. The Allstate NABC and WBCA Good Works Teams® recognizes players at all levels of college basketball whose charitable involvement and altruistic acts stand out amongst all other student-athletes participating in the sport.

Bannister Comes Up Clutch
East Carolina played in some tight games early on this season, building a 3-0 record when the margin of victory is five points or less. Redshirt senior guard Antoinette Bannister was a big reason for this success as she drained some big shots for the Purple and Gold. She canned a triple with eight seconds left against Detroit to send the game into overtime before hitting three free throws with 10 seconds on the clock versus Marist to give ECU the win by two points. Bannister also nailed a huge three with two seconds remaining against Ball State to force overtime as East Carolina out-scored the Cardinals 19-6 in the extra period.

Educate Me
This year's Education Day brought a crowd of 4,958 to Minges Coliseum. That number stands as the second highest in facility history for a women's basketball game.

1. Nov. 20, 2015 - 5,408 vs. Presbyterian
2. Nov. 15, 2016 - 4,958 vs. UNC Wilmington
3. Dec. 31, 2014 - 4,706 vs. Connecticut

Balancing Act
ECU has been a balanced team this season, utilizing all 11 players on its roster in nine of the last 10 games. Furthermore, nine Pirates are averaging double-digit minutes played. In the contest at Charlotte, all 11 ECU players scored at least one point.

Seeing Triple
ECU has made at least one three-point basket in 215 consecutive games. The last time the Pirates did not make at least one was Feb. 6, 2010 at UCF. In the last two seasons, East Carolina has held three different opponents without a conversion from beyond the arc:

Pirates Picked Sixth In AAC Preseason Poll
ECU was picked to finish sixth in the American Athletic Conference for the 2016-17 season according to a preseason poll of the league's head coaches. Connecticut was chosen as the unanimous preseason favorite with 100 points, ahead of Temple in second place (87) and USF in third (86). Tulane accumulated 73 points for fourth place, while SMU rounded out the top five with 50. East Carolina received 49 points in the poll and was ranked ahead of Memphis (47), UCF (41), Tulsa (33), Cincinnati (23) and Houston (16).

Top-50 Signing Class Arrives
Freshmen Dominique Claytor, Alexis Cortez, Raven Johnson and junior Thais Oliveira, signed National Letters of Intent to play for the Pirates in November 2015, comprising the No. 49 overall class nationally, according to the Dan Olsen Collegiate Girls Basketball Report. The quartet marked ECU's first top-50 signing class in program history.

Pirates in the Community
ECU Women's Basketball players have logged more than 400 hours of community service so far this year and have accumulated over 500 hours each of the last several seasons. They have put in time at the Cypress Glen Retirement Community, The Boys and Girls Club of Pitt County and Elmhurst Elementary School among many others.

Up Next
East Carolina returns home Saturday for an AAC matchup with SMU. The contest is scheduled for broadcast by the American Digital Network with Brock Bowling and Mack McCarthy on the call. Due to the league's new scheduling format, the Pirates and Mustangs will meet just once during the regular season.