University of North Carolina Athletics
Carolina Women Travel To Maryland
January 30, 2002 | Women's Basketball
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Jan. 30, 2002
Tipoff: UNC travels to Maryland, Jan. 31
The University of North Carolina women's basketball team (15-6, 5-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) travels to play Maryland (10-10, 3-6) on Thursday at Cole Field House in College Park, Md. Tipoff is 7:30 p.m.
UNC is ranked 24th in this week's Associated Press poll, 22nd in the USA Today/ESPN poll. Maryland is not ranked.
Next up for the Tar Heels is a home game on Feb. 4 against Florida State. Carolina hosts the Seminoles Monday at Carmichael Auditorium for a 7 p.m. tipoff.
On the air
Thursday's game will not be broadcast locally on radio.
Quick facts on UNC
2001-02 Record: 15-6 (5-4 ACC)
Current Rankings: 24th A.P., 22nd USA Today/ESPN
Head Coach: Sylvia Hatchell (Carson-Newman, 1974)
Career Record: 591-246 (in her 27th season)
Record at UNC: 319-166 (in her 16th season)
Assistant Head Coach: Andrew Calder
Assistant Coaches: Tracey Williams, Sylvia Crawley
Team captains: Coretta Brown, Courtney Chambers, Jennifer Thomas
Sports information contact: Dana Gelin
Phone/email: (919) 962-0083/dgelin@uncaa.unc.edu
UNC athletics website: www.TarHeelBlue.com
UNC ticket office: (919) 962-2126, (800) 722-4335
News of note
* Maryland leads the series 26-25, but UNC's won this year's first meeting, 85-58 on Dec. 30.
* Thursday's game is a homecoming of sorts for two Tar Heel players. Senior guard Nikki Teasley and sophomore center Candace Sutton both played their high school ball in Maryland, Teasley at St. John's at Prospect Hall in Frederick and Sutton at Largo High School.
* Sutton recorded a career-high six blocks in Sunday's win over Virginia and now has a total of 90, sixth on UNC's all-time list through just 48 games as a Tar Heel.
* Teasley is now in 11th place on UNC's all-time scoring list with a career total of 1,616 points, 100 from moving into the 10th spot.
* Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell is nine wins away from recording her 600th career victory.
UNC's statistical leaders
Scoring: Coretta Brown (15.7 points per game)
Rebounding: Chrystal Baptist (8.8 per game)
Assists: Leah Metcalf (5.1 per game)
Steals: Leah Metcalf (2.5 per game)
Blocks: Candace Sutton (2.5 per game)
Field goal percentage: Jennifer Thomas (55.7, 39-70)
Three-point percentage: Nikki Teasley (38.3, 46-120)
Free throw percentage: Nikki Teasley (87.5, 63-72)
Minutes per game: Coretta Brown (33.6 per game)
Scouting the Maryland Terrapins
Maryland is 10-10 on the season, 3-6 in the ACC, following a 62-55 loss Monday at NC State. The Terrapins led 22-21 at halftime and shot 41.8 for the game to 37.7 by NC State, but the Wolfpack hit 19 free throws to Maryland's three. Marche Strickland led UM with 18 points and Crystal Washington added 10.
Strickland leads the team in scoring with 13.5 points per game. Deedee Warley also averages in double figures with 10.9 points per game and leads the team in rebounding with an average of 6.4 per game.
The Terrapins are coached by Chris Weller, who is in her 27th season with the program.
The North Carolina-Maryland series
Maryland leads the series with North Carolina 26-25, but the Tar Heels have won seven of the last eight matchups, including this season's first meeting.
* On Dec. 30, 2001, in Chapel Hill, Carolina defeated the Terrapins 85-58 behind 18 points from Maryland-native Candace Sutton. Guards Nikki Teasley and Coretta Brown added 16 each. The Terrapins led by as many as eight in the first half and were up by four, 20-16, with 8:10 to play before the break when Carolina reeled off a 24-0 run to take a commanding lead. The Tar Heels went up by as many as 34 points in the second half, when Brown scored 13 of her 16.
Sophomore guard Courtney Chambers came off the bench to contribute a career-high 12 points. Sutton and sophomore forward Chrystal Baptist paced Carolina in rebounding with eight boards each.
* Maryland's last win in the series came last season, when the Terrapins won 55-53 at Cole Field House on Jan. 28, 2001. UNC led by one with 47 seconds to play, but Deedee Warley's putback with 13 seconds on the clock won the game for Maryland. Renneika Razor hit a free throw in the closing seconds for the final margin. The scoring total was the lowest of the season for Carolina, which got just two points from its bench.
Keys to victory
This season, the Tar Heels are undefeated when:
* Leading at the half (14-0)
* Holding opponents at 60 points or lower (6-0)
Last Thursday's loss to Duke marked the first time this season that the Tar Heels have lost after shooting 40 percent and scoring more than 75 points.
Until the Jan. 21 loss at Wake Forest, Carolina had won every game this year in which it outrebounded its opponent. In that game and the next one, however, UNC won the rebounding battle but lost the scoring war. The Tar Heels beat the Demon Deacons 52-47 on the boards but lost 65-64, then outrebounded Duke 45-44 but lost 102-82.
Three-point drought
Coming off their best three-point shooting performance of the year, at Clemson on Jan. 13, the Tar Heels struggled from long range in three consecutive games. UNC hit 13 of its 26 three-point attempts against Clemson, but didn't hit that many combined in three games that followed, losses to Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Duke.
Carolina shot 5-for-24 (20.8 percent) against Georgia Tech, 4-for-17 (23.5 percent) against Wake Forest and a season-low 2-for-14 (14.3 percent) against Duke.
In those three games combined, Carolina was 11-for-55 from long range for a 20.0 shooting percentage. UNC's season average is 33.3.
Mainstay in the lineup
Junior guard Coretta Brown is the only player to have started all 21 games for the Tar Heels this season, and was one of three to start all 29 last season.
After starting 10 games as a freshman and appearing in all 33, Brown moved into the starting lineup as UNC's point guard at the beginning of her sophomore season. This year, she shares guard duties with senior Nikki Teasley and freshman Leah Metcalf, both of whom have missed at least one start.
Brown has played in every game during her career at UNC, a total of 83 heading into the matchup with Maryland.
Hatchell closing in on 600th win
Sylvia Hatchell, head women's basketball coach at UNC since 1986, started the season just 24 wins away from her 600th career victory. With 576 wins heading into the 2001-02 slate, she ranked seventh among active Division I head coaches in all-time victories.
In her 27th season as a head coach, Hatchell's career record currently stands at 591-246.
She coached at Francis Marion College from 1976-85, compiling a 272-80 record and winning a pair of national championships. At UNC since the 1986-87 season, Hatchell has a record of 319-166 in her 16th season as coach of the Tar Heels. She has led the team to four Atlantic Coast Conference championships and to the 1994 NCAA Championship.
Hatchell is the only women's basketball coach to have led teams to national championships in the NCAA, NAIA and AIAW.
Tucker suffers torn ACL
Freshman center Tiffany Tucker suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee during the game against Tennessee-Martin on Jan. 7 and is likely to miss the remainder of the 2001-02 season. She underwent surgery to repair the tear on Jan. 26.
Tucker, a 6-5 player from Petersburg, Va., fell to the court with the injury after jumping for a rebound with just over a minute remaining in the game against Tennessee-Martin, a 90-67 win for Carolina. She played a total of four minutes, totaling three points and one block.
For the season, Tucker has appeared in 11 games, including two Atlantic Coast Conference contests. She is averaging 1.5 points and 1.3 rebounds in 4.5 minutes off the bench.
Sutton a super sophomore
Sophomore Candace Sutton was named ACC Player of the Week on Dec. 31 in recognition of her performance in Carolina's 85-58 win over Maryland on Dec. 30. She led UNC in scoring with 18 points and tied for the rebounding lead with eight.
The 6-6 center from Kettering, Md., has started 19 games for the Tar Heels this season and is tied for third on the team with a scoring average of 11.9 points per game. She is second on the team in rebounding with 6.6 per game. Her average of 2.5 blocks per game leads the ACC and she also ranks among the league leaders in field goal percentage (49.3).
Sutton has scored in double figures 14 times this season and has one double-double, with 19 points and 12 rebounds against Richmond.
* With four blocks against Wake Forest, Sutton moved into sixth place on UNC's career blocks list with a total of 81. She moved past Marion Jones (1994-95, '97) and Charlotte Smith (1992-95), who were tied for sixth with 78 each.
* Sutton suffered a sprained right ankle with 6:27 remaining in the first half of the Jan. 13 game against NC State. She missed the rest of the half, but returned to play 14 minutes in the second half. She did not play against Clemson and saw just 15 minutes of action against Georgia Tech.
Close calls becoming common
The 66-63 loss to NC State on Jan. 10 was UNC's first game of the season with a final margin in the single digits, and the three-point loss was followed by a four-point win (89-85) at Clemson three days later. Two games later, Carolina played its closest game of the season in a 65-64 loss at Wake Forest.
Heading into the NC State game, Carolina's closest score of the season -win or loss-had been in a 95-85 win at Old Dominion on Dec. 2.
Carolina's 15 wins this season have come by an average margin of 27 points. The Tar Heels' six losses have been by an average margin of 15.8 points.
On the season, UNC is outscoring its opponents 84.0-69.2. The margin shrinks to less than five points (UNC 78.6, opponents 74.4) in conference play.
* In its 15 wins, Carolina has averaged 91 points and 48.4 rebounds while shooting 47.2 percent from the field.
In its six losses, UNC has averaged 66.3 points and 40.7 rebounds while shooting 32.0 percent from the field and 24.8 percent from three point range. The Tar Heels have been outrebounded in four of their six losses.
Climbing the scoring chart
With eight points against Duke, senior guard Nikki Teasley moved into 11th place on UNC's all-time scoring chart, surpassing the total of 1,604 by Bernadette McGlade (1977-80). Following the game against Virginia, Teasley has a career total of 1,616 points.
In 10th place on the UNC list is Marion Jones, who scored 1,716 points during the three seasons in which she played for the Tar Heels.
Teasley scored the 1,500th point of her career on Dec. 30 against Maryland on a free throw with 2:32 to play in the first half.
Last time out for UNC
Jan. 27: No. 21 UNC 79, Virginia 64
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Coretta Brown hit four 3-pointers and had 22 points as No. 21 North Carolina ended a three-game losing streak with a 79-64 victory over Virginia on Sunday.
North Carolina (15-6, 5-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) scored the final 11 points of the first half to take a 40-29 lead. Brown hit all three of her 3-point attempts and had 13 points in the first half.
Virginia (11-9, 4-5) pulled to 51-46 with 12:19 left after Telisha Quarles scored 10 straight points, but Brown had a 3-pointer during a 9-0 run that put the Tar Heels up by 12 with nine minutes left.
Candace Sutton had 14 points and a career-high six blocks for North Carolina. Nikki Teasley had 10 points and seven assists. Brown was 4-for-6 from 3-point range.
Quarles led Virginia with 23 points. Brandi Teamer and Anna Prilliman had 11 each.
