University of North Carolina Athletics
Women's Basketball Takes on Maryland
June 21, 1999 | Women's Basketball
February 10, 1999
North Carolina Tar Heels
VS.
Maryland Terrapins
On the Air:
Radio: Tar Heel Sports Network (Flagship station: 1360*WCHL; Play-by-play: Stephen Gates)
UNC leaders:
scoring-Juana Brown, 15.3; Nikki Teasley, 14.9; Chanel Wright, 13.8; LaQuanda Barksdale, 13.6
rebounding-Barksdale, 8.4; Jackie Higgins, 5.7; Wright, 5.6
assists-Teasley, 5.7; Wright, 3.0
News to note: Juana Brown has led the team in scoring the last three games, with an average of 24.6 points per game. She now leads the Tar Heels in scoring for the season at 15.3 points per game.
Chanel Wright sprained her knee in practice on Monday and is questionable for the game against the Terrapins. Wright (Baltimore) and Nikki Teasley (Frederick) both played their high school basketball in Maryland.
The UNC-Maryland rivalry: North Carolina leads the series 26-19 and has won nine of the past 11 meetings. The Terrapins won the most recent matchup in College Park, however, 84-62 on Jan. 18, 1998.
In the teams first meeting of the season, on Jan. 10 in Chapel Hill, sixth-ranked UNC topped unranked Maryland 87-58. The Tar Heels led 11-0 before Maryland scored then had their best three-point shooting game of the season (8-for-9, .889) to maintain the lead.
Chanel Wright led Carolina in scoring with 21 points, while Juana Brown (17) and Nikki Teasley (14) also scored in double figures. Wright led the team in rebounds with eight, as UNC won the battle of the boards 48-37.
Maryland was led in scoring by Deedee Warleys 16 points. Ginji Perry and Antonieta Gabriel grabbed six rebounds each.
UNC Head to Head Maryland
22-5 record 5-17
.433 fg % .426
.419 opponent fg % .421
.310 3 pt fg % .249
.287 opponent 3 pt fg % .369
5.1 3 pt fg per game 1.9
16.6 3 pt attempts per game 7.7
.666 free throw % .626
43.2 rebound average 37.2
+1.5 rebound margin -1.5
84.3 points per game 58.3
69.9 opponent points per game 70.2
Last time out for UNC:
On Sunday, the Tar Heels lost 79-71 to N.C. State in the Wolfpacks first win at Carmichael since 1991. N.C. States Tynesha Lewis was the games high scorer with 25 points, and Summer Erb added 23 points and 17 rebounds for the Wolfpack.
Juana Brown led the Tar Heels in scoring for the third-straight game, with five three-pointers and a total of 24 points. The Tar Heels shot .333 to N.C. States .483 and were out-rebounded 53-44.
Scouting the Terrapins: Maryland is led in scoring by freshman DeeDee Warley, who averages 13.6 points per game. Senior Kelley Gibson and junior Branka Bogunovic also score in double figures, with 12.6 and 11.5 points respectively. Bogunovic leads the team in rebounding with 7.0 per game.
The Terrapins are coming off a homecourt loss to Virginia, 69-55 on Monday night.
Four scorers: Four Tar Heel starters Nikki Teasley, Juana Brown, Chanel Wright and LaQuanda Barksdale, average between 15.3 and 13.6 points per game, which ranks each of them among the top 13 scorers in the ACC. No other school has more than two players among the conferences top 15.
The top Tar Heels attempts are just as close together as their points. All four have attempted between 320 and 331 field goals this season.
Teasley giveth and taketh away: With sophomore point guard Nikki Teasley on the court, teammates never know when theyre going to get the ball and opponents never know when theyre going to lose it.
Teasleys 6.5 assists per conference game ranks as the best in the conference and she averages 5.7 overall, second in the ACC. She has a shot at breaking the Tar Heels single-season assist record, currently held by Pam Hammond, who had 169 assists in 1984-85. Teasley now has 155.
Teasleys 15 assists against Georgia Tech on Jan. 24 established a UNC single-game record. The old mark of 14 was set by Emily Johnson Murphy, now the teams director of basketball operations, on Jan. 20, 1990, against Duke.
Teasley also leads the team, and the conference, in steals with 70 and is on pace to earn a place among UNCs top-10 season totals for steals.
High (scoring) Heels: The Tar Heels scoring average of 84.3 points per game is the highest in the ACC and seventh-highest in the country. Three times this season Carolina has scored 100 or more points and only four times*in losses to UCLA (86-68), N.C. State (87-70 and 79-71), and Duke (93-71)*has UNC failed to score at least 75 points.
UNC averages 84.4 points against ACC foes.
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. *Theres no question she has tremendous potential and ability,* coach Sylvia Hatchell says. *The skys the limit.*
Starting at forward, Barksdale is averaging 13.6 points and 8.4 rebounds. She set new career highs in scoring in consecutive games with 22 points against Hampton and then 26 against Wake Forest two days later. Against Hampton, she hit her first eight field goal attempts and also grabbed 11 rebounds. At Wake Forest, she was 10-for-17 from the field in the return to her hometown of Winston-Salem and also added six rebounds and three blocks.
She has totaled nine double-doubles, tied for the most in the ACC this season. Her standout performances include a 16 point, 19 rebound outing against Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. Her boards (9 offensive) in that game tied a Hart Recreation Center record. Against Virginia on Jan. 18, she had a double-double before halftime and went on to total 17 points and 15 rebounds for the game.
Brown from downtown: After shooting 22.1 from long range last season, sophomore guard Juana Brown leads the Tar Heels and ranks second in the conference with a three-point percentage of .423. She has already tripled last seasons makes, with a current total of 47 compared with 17 for all of last season. Eight times this season she has hit three or more threes in a game.
Watching the polls: Folowing Sundays 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
Feats of Clay: Senior Yanick Clay, who has started 26 games this season at center, has already scored more points this season (163) than she had in her first three years at UNC combined (149).
She averages 6.0 points per game for the season, but is averaging 8.8 over the last five games and played her best all-around game of the season at Clemson. Against the taller Tigers, she scored 12 points and grabbed a team-leading nine rebounds while committing just two fouls.
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 easing up on eighth: Upon hitting a three-pointer with 4:42 left to play against Hampton on Dec. 31, senior Chanel Wright moved onto UNCs top 10 alltime scoring chart. Her 13 points in that game bumped her career total up to 1,556, surpassing the 1,551 points scored by 10th-place Kathy Wilson from 1985-88.
Her total now stands at 1,697, ninth overall and 19 points behind eighth-place Marion Jones.
Wright, who also celebrated her 21st birthday on the day she moved into 10th place, is averaging 14.4 points per game. A preseason pick for All-ACC honors and a candidate for the Naismith Player of the Year award, she boasts a career scoring average of 14.3. This season, she has established new career highs for scoring (33 against St. Johns) and rebounding (11 against Kansas).
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. Marion Jones (1994-97) 1,716 9. Chanel Wright (1996-99) 1,697 10. Bernie McGlade (1977-80) 1,604
Welcome back to the team: Tracy Reid, Carolinas 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 20 .5 points in the eight Tar Heel television games in which she has played, compared with 15.3 for for all 26 games and 13.0 in non-televised games. With cameras there to capture the action, shes shooting 54.9 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 last season as the teams toughest defender. Over the summer, she put extra work into her shooting 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 games final 30 seconds. Against Alabama, she hit six three-pointers, all in the first half.
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 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. For the season she is averaging 2.1 points and 1.0 rebounds.
In line for honors: Senior Chanel Wright and sophomore Nikki Teasley were both named preseason candidates for the Naismith College Basketball Player of the Year award and for All-ACC honors.
North Carolina is one of only three schools nationally and the only one in the ACC to place two players among the top 20 candidates for the Naismith award. UNC is also the only school to place two players on the preseason All-ACC team.
Both Wright and Teasley are former ACC Rookies of the Year.
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 womens 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.
New career highs:
Four of UNCs regular starters have already logged career-high performances this season.
Busy schedule: The Tar Heels played 16 games in November and December, more than any other Division I womens 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*one in the State Farm Tip-off Classic and three in the Rainbow Wahine Classic*plus two December conference games.
UNC in the NCAA Standings (Feb. 8):
Team scoring offense T8th (84.3)
UNC in the ACC Standings (Feb. 9):
Team scoring offense 1st (84.3) Steals 1st (12.1) Turnover margin 1st (7.0) Three-pointers per game 3rd (5.1) Scoring margin 3rd (14.4) locked shots 5th (2.9) Three-point percentage 5th (.310) Field goal percentage 5th (.433) Scoring defense 5th (69.9) Rebound margin 6th (1.4) Field goal percentage defense 6th (.419) Free throw percentage 7th (.666)
Individual ACC rankings (Feb. 9):
Scoring: Juana Brown, 6th (15.3); Nikki Teasley, 8th (14.9); Chanel Wright, T12th (13.8); LaQuanda Barksdale, T14th (13.6)
Rebounds: Barksdale, 4th (8.4)
Free throw percentage: Jessica Gaspar, 2nd (.804) Wright, 6th (.732)
Assists: Teasley, 2nd (5.7)
Steals: Teasley, 1st (2.7); Gaspar, 4th (2.1)
Blocks: Barksdale, T5th (1.0)
Three-point %: Brown, 2nd (.423); Teasley, 7th (.293)
Threes per game: Brown, 4th (1.8); Teasley, 5th (1.7)
Players of the Week Juana Brown opened the season by claiming the conferences 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.
Three weeks later, Nikki Teasley took the honor. Against Florida State on Dec. 5, she hit a three-pointer that tied the game at 94-94 with 13 seconds to play, then scored seven points in overtime as UNC pulled away to win 112-101. She scored a career-high 32 points in that game and earned ACC Player of the Week honors on Dec. 7.
Hatchells 250th UNC win: North Carolinas win over Florida State on Dec. 5 marked Sylvia Hatchells 250th victory at the Tar Heel helm.
Additionally, the win over Georgia Tech on Dec. 3 was Hatchells 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, Hatchells 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 535-210. She began her career as a junior varsity coach while earning a masters 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.
Gaspar under pressure: Senior guard Jessica Gaspar is shooting .804 from the line this season (.837 in conference games), the second best average in the ACC and best on the UNC team.
Gaspar is 78-97 from the line this season and 41-49 in the teams ACC games. With a current career average of .739, shell finish her career among UNCs top 10 in free throw percentage. The Tar Heels record holder for career average is Eileen McCann, .785 >from 1981-84.
Time on the sideline: 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.
Aloha, Hawaii: The Tar Heels spent Thanksgiving week in Hawaii, competing in the Rainbow Wahine Classic in Honolulu. There, the Tar Heels beat St. Johns 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. Johns game and earned a spot on the all-tournament team.
Other standout performances:
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 UNCs 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.
Higgins on target: Sophomore forward Jackie Higgins, a junior college All-America last season, is shooting a team-best 51 percent from the field and providing 8.9 points per game off the bench. Her 5.7 rebounding average is second best on the team.
At 6-feet, shes 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 teams 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. Against N.C. State in January, she tied her career high with 14 points.
Early signees for the Tar Heels:
ACC Champs Again and Again: In an impressive run, North Carolina has won four of the past five ACC Tournament championships. To claim their most recent, in 1998, the Tar Heels won three straight games against ranked teams: 76-56 over No. 15 Virginia, 56-52 over No. 8 Duke and 81-50 over No. 16 Clemson. Tracy Reid was the tournament MVP and was joined on the all-tournament team by Nikki Teasley and Chanel Wright. Juana Brown earned second-team honors.
Recapping the 1998 NCAA Tournament: North Carolina reached the Mideast Regional Final last season before falling 76-70 to the Tennessee team that went on to win the NCAA title. UNC led by 12 with 7:34 to play before the Lady Vols stormed back to win the game. Even though UNC didnt reach the Final Four, the Tar Heels were ranked No. 3 in the final coaches poll.
En route to the regional final, North Carolina toppled Howard 91-71 in the first round, Florida International 85-72 in the second and Illinois 80-74 in the regional semifinal.
The NCAA appearance was North Carolinas 11th overall and its seventh in 12 years under coach Sylvia Hatchell.
