University of North Carolina Athletics
Women's Hoops Preps For ACC Tournament
June 21, 1999 | Women's Basketball
February 25, 1999
ACC TOURNAMENT
Feb. 26-March 1
Independence Arena
Charlotte, N.C.
Carolina news of note:
Regular-season record: 24-6 (11-5 ACC)
Head coach: Sylvia Hatchell
Alma mater: Carson-Newman, 1974
Record at UNC: 265-131 (13th year)
Career record: 537-211 (24th year)
Assistant head coach: Andrew Calder
Assistant coaches: Ann Hancock, Shannon Spencer Current ranking: #13 AP, #14 USA Today
Friday, Feb. 26:
No. 7 Maryland vs. No. 8 Wake Forest, 6 p.m. (1)
No. 1 Duke vs. No. 9 Florida State, 8 p.m. (2)
Saturday, Feb. 27:
No. 4 Clemson vs. No. 5 N.C. State, 1 p.m. ( 3)
No. 2 Virginia vs. Game 1 winner, 3:30 p.m. (4)
No. 3 North Carolina vs. No. 6 Georgia Tech, 6 p.m. (5)
Sunday, Feb. 28:
Game 2 winner vs. Game 3 winner, 1 p.m. (6)
Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 3:30 p.m. (7)
Monday, March 1:
Game 6 winner vs. Game 7 winner, 8 p.m.
Broadcast information: Games 3, 6, 7 and 8 will be televised by the Regional Sports Networks (Home Team Sports, Fox Sports South, Sunshine Network) Any North Carolina games beyond the first round will be broadcast by the Tar Heel Sports Network (Flagship station: 1360
North Carolina vs. Georgia Tech: The Tar Heels and Yellow Jackets kick off the ACC Tournament the way they did the ACC season, by playing each other. In the conference opener for both teams on Dec. 3, Carolina never trailed and won 85-68 in Chapel Hill. Nikki Teasley led UNC with 24 points, 14 of which came in the first 10 minutes of the second half, and didn't commit a turnover. Niesha Butler led her team in scoring with 27 points. In Atlanta on Jan. 24, Tech triumphed 91-84, its first win over UNC since 1993. Butler again led the way with 29 points and Danielle Donehew added 27, including seven three-pointers. Teasley led the Tar Heels with 19 points and also set a school single-game record with 15 assists. UNC played without starting guard Juana Brown, who was on the bench with a sprained ankle. The Yellow Jackets are the only team with which UNC split this season. Carolina leads the series 33-8 and has won all three of the teams' previous ACC Tournament duels: 78-55 in 1994, 64-54 in 87 and 85-80 in 83.
Scouting the Yellow Jackets: Georgia Tech is led in scoring by freshman guard Niesha Butler, who averages 19.0 points per game, second in the ACC. Regina Tate leads the team in rebounds with 8.8 per game and ranks third in the ACC. The Yellow Jackets are 13-13 overall, 6-10 in the conference, and are unranked.
Tar Heels in the ACC Tournament: North Carolina has emerged victorious from four of the past five ACC Tournaments. Last season, the Tar Heels beat three ranked teams to win the title. A look at the last five years: 1998: beat Virginia 76-56, beat Duke 56-52, beat Clemson 81-50 1997: beat Wake Forest 86-60, beat Duke 66-55, beat Clemson 62-58 1996: lost to Clemson, 67-49
1995: beat Wake Forest 71-51, beat N.C. State 90-71, beat Duke 95-70 1994: beat Georgia Tech 78-55, beat Clemson 65-64, beat Virginia 77-60
Carolina as a #3 seed: The Tar Heels have been seeded third in the ACC Tournament twice before and have lost in the semifinals both times. In 1993, UNC opened with an 89-71 win against No. 6 N.C. State before losing 75-61 to Maryland in the semifinals. In 1987, UNC beat No. 6 seed Georgia Tech 64-54 in the first round then lost 70-63 to No. 2 seed N.C. State in the semifinals.
Maryland the only three-peater: Carolina is one tournament championship away from the rare accomplishment of winning three straight. The only team to have won three consecutive titles is Maryland, from 1981-83. The Terrapins lead the ACC in overall titles with eight since 1978. Carolina is next with five, while N.C. State has won four, Virginia three and Clemson one.
Record-breaking passes: With a total of 176 assists, sophomore guard Nikki Teasley now owns Carolina's single-season record for assists. The old mark was 169, set by Pam Hammond in 1985. Teasley's 170th assist came against Duke on Feb. 21, on an inbounds play to Yanick Clay with 7:44 remaining in the first half. Teasley also owns the Tar Heels' single-game assist record, set with 15 against Georgia Tech on Jan. 24. The old mark of 14 was set by Emily Johnson Murphy, now the team's director of basketball operations, on Jan. 20, 1990, against Duke.
Give and take: With Nikki Teasley on the court, teammates never know when they're going to get the ball and opponents never know when they're going to lose it. She leads the ACC in both steals and assists and is the first player to accomplish that double since Virginia's Dawn Staley did so in 1991-92. Teasley is tied with Clemson's Itoro Umo for assists per game (5.9), but has 176 total assists to Umo's 153. Against ACC opponents, Teasley averages 6.6 assists per game. Teasley has now led the ACC in total assists two straight years and is the first player to do so since Virginia's Dawn Staley in 1990-91 and 1991-92. Teasley's 81 steals lead the ACC and put her on the verge of earning a place among UNC's top-10 season totals for steals. Tonya Sampson (1991), Emily Johnson (1992) and Pam Leake (1984) currently occupy a three-way tie for tenth with 84.
Four scorers: Four Tar Heel starters
Tar Heels, Teasley in OT: Carolina is 2-0 in overtime games for the season, thanks in large part to Nikki Teasley. In the first overtime win of the season, Dec. 5 at Florida State, she scored a career-high 32 points, including 10 points in overtime. On Feb. 14 against Virginia, Teasley hit a free throw to tie the game with 57 seconds remaining then scored seven of the team's 12 points in overtime. She was named ACC Player of the Week following each of those performances.
High (scoring) Heels: As they have all season, the Tar Heels lead the ACC in scoring. With an average of 83.8 points per game, Carolina ranks eighth nationally. Three times this season Carolina has scored 100 or more points and only four times
Brown from downtown: After shooting .221 from long range last season, sophomore guard Juana Brown leads the Tar Heels and is tied for first in the conference with a three-point percentage of .416. She has already tripled last season's makes, with a current total of 52 compared with 17 for all of last season. Nine times this season she has hit three or more threes in a game.
Barksdale does it all: Sophomore forward LaQuanda Barksdale, who averaged 10 minutes a game last season backing up All-American Tracy Reid, has made the most of her expanded role. Starting at forward, she has scored in double figures in the last 10 games, averaging 17.1 points per game over that span.
Feats of Clay: Senior Yanick Clay, who has started 28 games this season at center, has already scored more points this year (175) than she had in her first three years at UNC combined (149). She averages 5.8 points per game and played her best all-around game of the season at Clemson on Feb. 3, scoring 12 points and grabbing a team-leading nine rebounds while committing just two fouls. She also led the team in rebounds against Maryland with eight. Clay, who is from Inglewood, Calif., has spent the past two summers in the WNBA, serving as an intern in the office of the L.A. Sparks.
Wright moves up to eighth: Senior Chanel Wright recently did something that elite athletes the world over only dream of accomplishing: she passed Marion Jones. Jones, the world's fastest female sprinter, scored 1,716 points for the Tar Heels between 1993 and 1997. With 15 points against Duke on Feb. 21, Wright bumped her career total up to 1,717, a career average of 14.0 points per game. Wright moved into UNC's top 10 on Dec. 31, which was also her 21st birthday. She scored 13 points against Hampton to bring her total to 1,556 and move onto the list. Wright is 61 points from seventh place, currently held by Dawn Royster. She needs 44 points to move on to the ACC's career scoring list. Duke's Katie Meier (1986-90) currently occupies 25th place with 1,761 points. This season, Wright is averaging 13.5 points per game and was a preseason pick for All-ACC honors and a candidate for the Naismith Player of the Year award. North Carolina Career Scoring
1. Tracy Reid (1995-98) 2,200 2. Tonya Sampson (1991-94) 2,143 3. Charlotte Smith (1992-95) 2,094 4. Pam Leake (1983-86) 2,001 5. Tresa Brown (1981-84) 1,931 6. Kathy Crawford (1980-83) 1,806 7. Dawn Royster (1984-87) 1,778 8. Chanel Wright (1996-99) 1,717 9. Marion Jones (1994-97) 1,716 10. Bernie McGlade (1977-80) 1,604
Welcome back to the team: Tracy Reid, Carolina's alltime leading scorer, will work with the team this semester as a student assistant coach while enrolled in classes to finish up her undergraduate degree in communications. Reid, who played for the Tar Heels from 1995-98, earned WNBA Rookie of the Year honors last summer while playing for the Charlotte Sting. While at UNC, she was named ACC Player of the Year in both 1997 and 98.
Lights + camera = action for Brown: Television may add 10 pounds to most people, but for sophomore guard Juana Brown it adds five points. Brown is averaging 18.5 points in the ten Tar Heel television games in which she has played (she missed the second Georgia Tech game with a sprained ankle), compared with 14.8 for all 28 games and 12.9 in non-televised games. With cameras there to capture the action, she's shooting 51.9 percent >from three-point range. On Jan. 18, she hit four second-half threes to lead the team with 20 points in a 79-68 win over No. 19 Virginia (Home Team Sports). She was also the leading scorer with 27 points against Kansas (ESPN2) on Nov. 15, 26 points against Alabama (Fox Sports South) on Dec. 20, and 24 points against N.C. State on Feb. 7. Brown, who is from Memphis, earned a reputation during her freshman year as the team's toughest defender. She put extra work into her shooting last summer and has watched that practice pay off. She earned ACC Player of the Week honors in the first week of the season after averaging 22 points in wins over Akron and Kansas. Against Florida State on Dec. 5 (Sunshine Network, incidentally), she scored a then-career-high 28 points and hit one of two three-pointers that closed a six-point gap in the game's final 30 seconds. Against Alabama, she hit six three-pointers, all in the first half. Against N.C. State on Feb. 7, she was 5-for-10 from three-point range.
Higgins on target: Sophomore forward Jackie Higgins, a junior college All-America last season, is shooting a team-best 51.6 percent from the field and providing 8.9 points per game off the bench. Her 5.4 rebounding average is tied for second best on the team. At 6-feet, she's regularly asked to defend and shoot over players four, six and even 10 inches taller. Still, Higgins has put in her share of strong performances, and not just in the weight room, where she has broken most of the team's lifting records. During the Tar Heels' three games in Hawaii, Higgins came off the bench to average 12 points and 7.6 rebounds. Against Tennessee State, she grabbed a season-high 13 rebounds and against Hampton she totaled a season-high 14 points. Against Clemson on Jan. 4, she scored 12 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for her second double-double of the season. She scored a career-high 16 points (7-for-12) at Maryland on Feb. 11.
Davis returns from diagnostic surgery: Senior center Natasha Davis returned to action against N.C. State after missing five games following diagnostic arthroscopic knee surgery on Jan. 21. She had experienced pain and weakness in her right knee since a fall during a game in mid-December, but the surgery showed only bruising of the bone and nothing that needed to be surgically repaired.
Davis played six minutes against the Wolfpack, grabbing two rebounds and scoring a point. She played 20 minutes against Virginia on Feb. 14 , and her defense earned Hatchell's praise. For the season she is averaging 1.9 points and 1.1 rebounds and has earned coach Sylvia Hatchell's praise for her defense in the post.
Gaspar under pressure: Senior guard Jessica Gaspar is shooting .805 from the line this season (.831 in conference games), the second best average in the ACC and best on the UNC team. Gaspar is 91-113 from the line this season and 54-65 in the team's ACC games. Against Virginia on Feb. 14, she went to the line 16 times and hit 13 shots, good for all her points on the day. With a current career average of .739, she'll finish her career among UNC's top 10 in free throw percentage. The Tar Heels' record holder for career average is Eileen McCann, .785 from 1981-84.
Quite a crowd: The Tar Heels' Jan. 22 game with Duke drew a Carmichael Auditorium capacity crowd of 10,000, the largest ever at a North Carolina women's home game and the fourth-largest in ACC history. The Tar Heels' previous high in attendance (and the previous No. 4 ACC crowd) was 9,450, set Feb. 5, 1995, against Virginia. Carolina averaged 2,465 fans at home at Carmichael Auditorium during the regular season and compiled a record of 14-2.
New career highs: Four of UNC's regular starters have logged career-high performances this season.
Busy schedule: The Tar Heels played 16 games in November and December, more than any other Division I women's team in the country and more than any Tar Heel team had ever played before the start of the new year.
Upping the total were four exempt games
UNC in the NCAA Standings (Feb. 23): Team scoring offense 8th (83.8)UNC in the ACC Standings (Feb. 21): Team scoring offense 1st (83.8) Steals 1st (11.8) Turnover margin 1st (6.7) Three-pointers per game 3rd (5.1) Scoring margin 4th (13.2) locked shots 4th (2.8) Three-point percentage 4th (.312) Field goal percentage 5th (.433) Scoring defense 5th (70.6) Field goal percentage defense 7th (.422) Free throw percentage 7th (.659) Rebound margin 7th (1.5)
Individual ACC rankings (Feb. 21):
Scoring: Nikki Teasley, 6th (15.5); Juana Brown, 9th (14.8); LaQuanda Barksdale, T10th (14.3); Chanel Wright, 13th (13.5)
Rebounds: Barksdale, 4th (8.2)
Free throw percentage: Jessica Gaspar, 2nd (.805) Wright, 9th (.715)
Assists: Teasley, T1st (5.9)
Steals: Teasley, 1st (2.7); Gaspar, T3rd (2.0)
locks: Barksdale, 7th (0.9)
Three-point percentage: Brown, T1st (.416); Teasley, 8th (.304)
Threes per game: Brown, T2nd (1.8); Teasley, T3rd (1.7)
Weekly Honorees: After leading the Tar Heels in scoring in the two most recent games, Nikki Teasley was named ACC Player of the Week for the second time this season. Both time she has been honored after leading UNC to an overtime win. Her latest ACC honor was announced on Monday, a day after Teasley led UNC with 24 points in an 82-80 win over Virginia. Seven of her points game in the overtime period. On Feb. 11, playing at Maryland in front of many friends and family members, she led the Tar Heels with 19 points. Teasley also earned Player of the Week honors on Dec. 7. Against Florida State on Dec. 5, she nailed a three-pointer that tied the game at 94-94 with 13 seconds to play, then scored 10 points in overtime as UNC pulled away to win 112-101. She scored a career-high 32 points in that game. Juana Brown opened the season by claiming the conference's first Player of the Week honors. She scored 17 points against Akron on Nov. 13 and 27 (then a career high) against Kansas in the State Farm Tip-off Classic on Nov. 15.
Watching the polls: Following the Feb. 7 homecourt loss to unranked N.C. State, North Carolina dropped out of the top 10 in both polls for the first time all season. The Tar Heels had been in the top 10 of at least one of the polls since the week of Jan. 20, 1998.
Week AP USA Today
preseason 10 7
11/16 5 7
11/23 5 5
11/30 9 8
12/7 7 7
12/14 7 6
12/21 6 6
12/28 6 6
1/4 6 6
1/11 7 6
1/18 7 6
1/25 14 10
2/1 13 10
2/8 14 14
2/15 12 13
2/21 13 14
Hatchell's 250th UNC win: North Carolina's win over Florida State on Dec. 5 marked Sylvia Hatchell's 250th victory at the Tar Heel helm. Additionally, the win over Georgia Tech on Dec. 3 was Hatchell's 100th regular season ACC victory at North Carolina. Hatchell took over the reins prior to the 1986-87 season and earned her first win in the season opener, 96-79 over Northwestern State in the LSU Crawfish Classic on Nov. 28, 1986.
Over her 12 years in Chapel Hill, Hatchell's teams have averaged 20 wins per season. In the past seven seasons, the Tar Heels have averaged 25 wins. Hatchell, a native of Gastonia, N.C., and a 1974 graduate of Carson-Newman, has a career record of 537-211. She began her career as a junior varsity coach while earning a master's degree at the University of Tennessee, then went on to earn AIAW and NAIA national championships at Francis Marion before settling at North Carolina. Upon leading the Tar Heels to an NCAA title in 1994, she became the only basketball coach to claim AIAW, NAIA and NCAA Division I titles She earned her 500th career win on Jan. 22, 1998, with a 67-64 win over N.C. State.
Injury rundown: After starting the first 22 games of the season, sophomore guard Juana Brown missed the Jan. 24 Georgia Tech game with a left ankle sprain and mid-foot strain. Brown initially injured her left foot and ankle in the Jan. 18 game at Virginia, then aggravated the injury during the Jan. 22 game against Duke. X-rays performed the day after the Georgia Tech proved negative and Brown was listed as day-to-day leading up to the Jan. 28 game against FSU. She was able to start that game and scored 17 points. Senior Chanel Wright sat out game at Maryland on Feb. 11 after spraining her knee in practice on Feb. 8. The injury was classified as a mild sprain of the medial collateral ligament and a contusion to the left knee. Wright returned to the starting lineup for Senior Day activities against Virginia and played 16 minutes, scoring five points.
Aloha, Hawaii: The Tar Heels spent Thanksgiving week in Hawaii, competing in the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu. There, the Tar Heels beat St. John's 77-67 on Nov. 27, lost 86-68 to UCLA on Nov. 28 and beat host Hawaii 75-72 on Nov. 29 to claim third place in the tournament. Senior Chanel Wright scored a career-high 33 points in the St. John's game and earned a spot on the all-tournament team. Other standout performances:
In between games, players learned the hula at a luau and several also tried surfing.
Team captains: The Tar Heel captains for this season are seniors Yanick Clay, Jessica Gaspar and Chanel Wright, and sophomore Nikki Teasley.
Holiday cheers: Since 1986, when Sylvia Hatchell took over as UNC's coach, the Tar Heels are a combined 83-13 in games played during the month of December. Seven times in the last nine years, including both the 1998-99 and the 1997-98 seasons, Carolina has made it through December undefeated.
Early signees for the Tar Heels:
Statesboro, Ga., Southeast Bulloch High
Asheville, N.C., T.C. Roberson High
lanch, N.C., Bartlett Yancey Senior High
Detroit, Mich., Detroit Country Day School
