University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC Women Open NCAA Hoops Play
March 15, 2002 | Women's Basketball
March 15, 2002
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Tipoff: UNC in the 2002 NCAA Tournament
The University of North Carolina women's basketball team (24-8, 11-5 Atlantic Coast Conference) is making its 14th appearance in the NCAA Tournament field. The Tar Heels received an at-large bid and will play as the No. 4 seed in the Midwest Region.
UNC opens tournament play against the No. 13 seed, Harvard, on Saturday, March 16. Tipoff at Carmichael Auditorium is 7:30 p.m.
In the first game of the evening, No. 5 seed Minnesota will face No. 12 seed UNLV.
NCAA Tournament in Chapel Hill
First round games: Saturday, March 16
5:00 p.m.: No. 5 seed Minnesota vs. No. 12 seed UNLV
7:30 p.m.: No. 4 seed North Carolina vs. No. 13 seed Harvard
Second round game: Monday, March 18
6:30 p.m.: First round winners (ESPN2)
All games at Carmichael Auditorium (Cap. 10,180)
On the air
Saturday's game will be broadcast locally on radio. It will air on the Tar Heel Sports Network, of which the flagship station is 1360AM-WCHL. Stephen Gates is the Tar Heels' play-by-play announcer and Jones Angell will provide color commentary.
Tickets
Single-game tickets are $10 for adults, $6 for students. Two-day packages also are available at a cost of $15 for adults, $10 for students.
Tickets are available through the UNC ticket office (919-962-2296, 800-722-4335) or at the door.
Quick facts on UNC
2001-02 Record 24-8 (11-5 ACC)
Current Rankings 16th A.P., 16th USA Today/ESPN
Head Coach Sylvia Hatchell (Carson-Newman, 1974)
Career Record 600-248 (in her 27th season)
Record at UNC 328-168 (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
-- UNC's Sylvia Hatchell earned her 600th victory as a head coach on March 3 with a win over NC State. She is one of six active Division I women's basketball coaches to have reached that mark.
-- Carolina is 10-2 in its last 12 games, with both losses coming to Duke, ranked in the top five nationally for both meetings.
-- Junior guard Coretta Brown needs three three-pointers to set an Atlantic Coast Conference single-season record. She heads into Saturday's game with a school-record 88. The ACC mark is 90, by NC State's Jennifer Howard in 1996.
-- Senior guard Nikki Teasley is 61-68 from the free throw line over the last eight games and is shooting 87.1 from the line for the season, the best single-season mark in UNC history. She now ranks second in UNC history with a career free throw percentage of 78.0.
-- Coretta Brown's current career three-point percentage, 36.9 (152-412), is the best in school history.
-- UNC has hit a school- and conference-record 215 three-pointers this season. The old UNC mark was 188, set in 2000. The old ACC mark was 213, by Duke in 1999.
-- Nikki Teasley's current career assists average of 5.72 per game is the highest in ACC history. She heads into Saturday's game with a career total of 699.
UNC's statistical leaders
Scoring: Coretta Brown (16.6 points per game)
Rebounding: Chrystal Baptist (7.6 per game)
Assists: Nikki Teasley (5.3 per game)
Steals: Nikki Teasley (2.2 per game)
Blocks: Candace Sutton (2.0 per game)
Field goal percentage: Jennifer Thomas (55.0, 66-120)
Three-point percentage: Coretta Brown (39.1, 88-225)
Free throw percentage: Nikki Teasley (87.1, 128-147)
Minutes per game: Coretta Brown (34.1 per game)
Scouting the Harvard Crimson
Harvard is 22-5 on the season and making its fourth NCAA appearance after capturing its seventh Ivy League championship.
The Crimson is led in scoring by sophomore forward Hana Peljo, who averages 20.4 points a game and earned conference Player of the Year honors by unanimous vote. Freshman forward Reka Cserny averages 16.0 points and was named Rookie of the Year, also by unanimous vote. Peljo and Cserny also lead the team in rebounding, with 9.6 and 7.7 boards per game, respectively.
In the team's most recent outing, Harvard defeated Dartmouth 58-42 on March 5. The Crimson has won its last 13 games and 16 of its last 17.
Head coach Kathy Delaney-Smith is 297-223 in her 20th season with the program.
The North Carolina-Harvard series
UNC and Harvard have met just once in women's basketball, in a first-round NCAA Tournament game in 1997. In that game, on March 14, the Tar Heels defeated the Crimson 78-53 at Carmichael Auditorium. Carolina was seeded No. 1 in the East Region that year and Harvard was the No. 16 seed.
Last time they met ...
March 14, 1997: North Carolina 78, Harvard 53
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--Four Tar Heels scored in double figures as UNC defeated Harvard in the teams' first meeting. Tracy Reid led the way with 20 points, followed by Chanel Wright with 17, Marion Jones with 15 and Jessica Gaspar with 11. Allison Feaster was the only Crimson player in double figures, scoring 16.
Harvard scored first, a Feaster free throw at the 19:27 mark, then the Tar Heels scored the next 12 points. After that, the margin was never in single digits. Carolina led 44-25 at the half.
UNC shot 51.8 from the floor to Harvard?s 34.5, but the Crimson won the rebounding battle, 38-33.
North Carolina went on to defeat Michigan State 81-71 in overtime in the second round game, but lost 55-46 to George Washington in the regional semifinal.
The other side of the bracket
-- Minnesota, the No. 5 seed in the Midwest Region, is 21-7 overall. The Golden Gophers are ranked 18th in this week's Associated Press poll, 22nd in the coaches' poll. Sophomore Lindsay Whalen leads the team in scoring with 21.7 points per game. Also averaging double figures are freshman Janel McCarville (13.5), junior Corrin Von Wald (12.0) and sophomore Kadidja Andersson (10.8). McCarville is the team's top rebounder with 7.8 per game.
UNC and Minnesota have met twice in women's basketball and the series is tied at 1-1.
-- UNLV, the No. 12 seed in the region, is 23-7 on the season. The Lady Rebels are led in scoring by senior forward Linda Frohlich, who averages 20.9 points per game. Junior guard Constance Jinks is next, scoring 17.2.
UNC and UNLV have met just once, in the 1986 NCAA Tournament. That year, North Carolina beat the Lady Rebels 82-76 in a second-round West Region game in Chapel Hill.
Tournament Tidbits
-- UNC is 8-2 in NCAA first round games. Seven of those wins have come at home and both losses have come on the road.
-- North Carolina is 14-1 at home in NCAA Tournament play. The Tar Heels have hosted games on 10 previous occasions, the most recent in 1999.
-- UNC is 69-2 vs. nonconference teams at home over the last 10 years, 67-1 at Carmichael Auditorium. (Three nonconference games were played at the Dean E. Smith Center over that span.)
-- Carolina is 4-4 in NCAA play as the No. 4 seed.
-- North Carolina won the 1994 NCAA Championship and reached the Elite Eight in 1998. Including those years, the Tar Heels have reached the Sweet 16 nine times.
-- UNC has made it at least as far as the regional semifinal game in each of its last seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
-- The Tar Heels are 2-1 playing in the Midwest Region. UNC's only appearance in that region was in 1999, when Carolina reached the region semifinal as the No. 4 seed.
-- The Tar Heels' only previous matchup with Harvard came in the 1997 NCAA Tournament, when Carolina won 78-53 in a first-round game in Chapel Hill.
-- Carolina is 2-1 all-time against the two teams in Chapel Hill's other first-round game. The Tar Heels are 1-1 against Minnesota and 1-0 against UNLV. All three of those games took place more than a decade ago and all were in Chapel Hill.
Vs. Minnesota
Jan. 16, 1980: UM 80, UNC 78
Dec. 21, 1988: UNC 109, UM 96
Vs. UNLV
Mar. 15, 1986: UNC 82, UNLV 76 (NCAA Tourn. Second Round)
Teasley touted
UNC senior Nikki Teasley recently was named one of 48 district finalist for Kodak All-America honors. She is joined on the District 2 list by Duke's Alana Beard and Iciss Tillis, Old Dominion's Lucienne Bertheau, Clemson's Chrissy Floyd and Siena's Gunto Basko.
-- Teasley also was named honorable mention Associated Press All-America.
ACColades
Tar Heel guards Coretta Brown and Nikki Teasley were named to the 2001-02 All-Atlantic Coast Conference first team, marking the first time since 1997 that two Carolina players have been named to the five-member team. That year Marion Jones and Tracy Reid earned first-team honors.
Guard Leah Metcalf, who joins Brown and Teasley in the starting lineup, earned a spot on the 2002 ACC All-Freshmen team. Metcalf also was named honorable mention All-ACC, as was sophomore Candace Sutton.
Tournament honors
Three Carolina players-- Coretta Brown, Candace Sutton and Nikki Teasley--earned first-team All-ACC Tournament honors as the Tar Heels reached the 2002 championship game. Their selection marked the first time since 1999 that players from the second-place squad have made up the majority of the five-member first team. (In 1999, UNC had three players named to the team after finishing as the runner-up.)
Teasley's all-tournament nod was the fourth of her career, making her just the second player in conference history to earn first-team All-ACC Tournament honors in all four years of her career. The first was Trudi Lacey, who played for NC State from 1978-81.
Hatchell records 600th win
On March 3, Sylvia Hatchell became the sixth active Division I women's basketball coach to record a 600th career win. The team's 58-52 victory over NC State in the ACC Tournament semifinal game gave her a 600-247 record in her 27th year as a head coach. (She is currently 600-248 overall.)
Hatchell 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 now has a record of 328-168 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.
Final Four action
No matter how the UNC season ends, senior guard Nikki Teasley will close out her collegiate career at the Final Four. She has been invited join the country's top seniors in competing in the ESPN Slam Dunk and Three-Point Shooting Championship at the men?s Final Four in Atlanta and in the WBCA All-Star Challenge at the women's Final Four in San Antonio.
If the Tar Heels don't reach the Final Four as a team, Teasley will compete in the three-point competition in Atlanta on Thursday, March 28, then fly to San Antonio to play in the WBCA game on Saturday, March 30.
Teasley is one of 17 Division I players named to the WBCA roster. That squad, which will also include the Division II and III and NAIA Players of the Year, will play a game against the USA Basketball National Team.
Records fall as threes do
Led by the top two long-range shooters in the ACC, the Tar Heels have hit 215 three-pointers this season to set school and conference records.
The old UNC mark was 188 by the 1999-2000 team. The old ACC mark was 213 by Duke in 1998-99.
Junior Coretta Brown has hit more threes this season than anyone in UNC history. Heading into the year, Stephanie Lawrence held the record with 69 in 1995. Brown currently has 88, averaging an ACC-best 2.75 per game. She shoots 39.1 from long range, also a conference high, and is three short of setting an ACC single-season record for threes. NC State?s Jennifer Howard holds the mark with 90 in 1996.
Senior guard Nikki Teasley ranks just behind Brown in both three-point categories (2.37 per game, 38.0 percent shooting) and has passed UNC's old single-season mark herself. Her season total currently stands at 71.
With a total of 230 in her career, Teasley has passed Lawrence?s total of 227 from 1992-95 and taken over UNC's all-time mark.
