GAMEDAY PREVIEW: Women’s Basketball at Houston

Saturday, February 25

Houston, Texas

3 PM

East Carolina University

Houston

February 24, 2017 | Women's Basketball

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Game 29: East Carolina at Houston
Date	Saturday, February 25
Time	3:00 p.m. (ET)
Location	Houston, Texas (Hofheinz Pavilion)
Coverage	Live Stats \\\ Watch Live \\\ WZMB Radio \\\ East Carolina Game Notes
Social Media	Twitter: @ECUScoreboard \\\ @ECUWomensHoops \\\ #ECUndaunted \\\ #2FTN

GREENVILLE, N.C. – East Carolina (11-17, 2-13 AAC) heads to Houston (10-17, 3-11 AAC) for the final game of the regular season at Hofheinz Pavilion on Saturday. Tip-off is slated for 3 p.m. (ET) as the Pirates look to put together back-to-back wins for the first time in AAC play since defeating UCF and Houston on January 7th and 14th last season.

Kristen Gaffney and Bre McDonald lead East Carolina with 14.9 and 11.8 points per game. The duo both recorded double-double performances in the Pirates' last outing while Khadidja Toure joined them in double figure scoring. East Carolina is averaging 62.2 points per game, just above Houston in the AAC statistical standings.

East Carolina is one of two AAC teams playing its final game of the regular season on Saturday.

Scouting the Cougars
Houston enters Saturday's game one-spot ahead of the Pirates in the AAC standings with a 3-11 league record. The Cougars who are 10-17 overall, are coming off a 79-50 home loss against USF on Tuesday night. Two of UH's three AAC wins are against Tulsa while the third was from the first meeting of the season between Houston and ECU. Jasmyne Harris leads the Cougars as the only player averaging double figures with 11 points per game. Serithia Hawkins grabs a team-best 7.7 rebounds per game while adding 7.4 points per game. The Cougars rank third in the American Athletic Conference in offensive rebounds and are tied for fourth with nine steals per game.

The Series
Houston leads the all-time series 10-7 entering Saturday's game. The Pirates are 7-2 in the series under head coach Heather Macy and have won four of the last five road games against the Cougars. In the last meeting, Houston defeated ECU 73-62 in Greenville on February 4.

Last Time out (Feb. 22)
Three seniors scored in double figures as East Carolina downed Cincinnati, 80-69, in the Pirates' final home game of the season Wednesday night. Bre McDonald exploded for 24 points and 12 rebounds while Kristen Gaffney scored 20 points and added 11 boards marking the first time two Pirates had double-doubles since an overtime loss to Tulsa on January 31. The win snapped an 11-game losing streak for ECU.

Cincinnati scored the opening basket but the Pirates used a 12-0 run to take a double-figure lead by the first media timeout. The Bearcats would regain the lead in the second quarter and the two squads would go back-and-forth until the Pirates closed the first half on a 9-0 run to lead 41-36 at halftime.

ECU extended its lead to as many as 23 points in the third quarter and shot an impressive 61.1 percent (11-for-18) from the field during the stanza in the Pirates highest scoring quarter of the AAC season.

Joining McDonald and Gaffney in double figures was Khadidja Toure who tallied 14 points, four assists and three steals in her final start inside Minges Coliseum. Fellow senior Antoinette Bannister was one-point shy of double figures adding nine points and a game-high five assists in the win. Sophomore Alex Frazier matched Bannister's helpers while adding six points and five rebounds of her own.

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 10 more victories, she will surpass Sharon Baldwin-Tener (2002-10), who tops the list with 127.

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 4-0 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.in all five wins, Bannister tallied the game-winning points for East Carolina.

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

Three Me
The loss at Temple snapped a 218-game streak of that East Carolina made at least one three-point basket. Prior to Temple, the last time the Pirates did not make at least one was Feb. 6, 2010 at UCF. The Pirates have now made a trey in 228 of the last 229 games.

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 700 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. On Sunday, ECU volunteered with Upward Basketball where the players taught basketball skills drills to attendees.

Up Next
The Pirates await their fate in the American Athletic Conference tournament with a final round of league games still to be played Friday night. The first round of the AAC begins Friday, March 3rd.