University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC Travels To Face Virginia
March 1, 2003 | Women's Basketball
March 1, 2003
Complete Game Notes in PDF Format
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Tipoff: No. 8 UNC travels to Virginia, March 2
The University of North Carolina women's basketball team (25-3 overall, 13-2 ACC) wraps up the regular season Sunday with an Atlantic Coast Conference game at Virginia. Tipoff at University Hall in Charlottesville, Va., is 2 p.m. The game will be televised nationally by ESPN2.
The Tar Heels are ranked eighth in the Associated Press poll and seventh in the ESPN/USA Today/WBCA coaches' poll. Virginia is not ranked.
Next up for UNC is the ACC Tournament, which runs March 7-10 in Greensboro, N.C.
On the air
Sunday's game will be broadcast live nationally by ESPN2. Mark Jones will call the play-by-play and Doris Burke will provide color commentary.
Sunday's game also will be broadcast live on the Tar Heel Radio Network. The flagship station is 1360-AM WCHL. Stephen Gates is Carolina's play-by-play announcer and Jones Angell provides color commentary.
Game action is available via the internet at www.TarHeelBlue.com.
News of note
* North Carolina leads the series with Virginia 31-30 after winning this year's first matchup, 74-54 on Jan. 30.
* With a 94-77 victory Thursday against Maryland, UNC reached the 25-win mark for the seventh time in school history, all in the last 10 seasons. The win gave Carolina a 15-1 record at home this season.
* Senior guard Coretta Brown is five three-pointers from becoming the Tar Heels' career leader. She heads into the game against Virginia with a career total of 232. Nikki Teasley, who hit a three-pointer to win the 2002 WNBA Championship for the Los Angeles Sparks, holds the UNC career record with 236.
* Coretta Brown heads into the Virginia game with 497 career assists. She is set to become just the fifth UNC player and the 18th ACC player to reach the 500-assists mark.
* Junior center Candace Sutton is 13 points from reaching the 1,000-point mark for her career.
* Candace Sutton has hit 63.2 percent (24-38) of her shots over the last five games since missing all four of her field goal attempts against Wake Forest on Feb. 9.
* Sophomore guard Leah Metcalf, who handed out a season-high 10 assists Thursday against Maryland, is now UNC's season leader in that category with 4.7 per game, second in the ACC. She ranks second in the ACC in assist-turnover ratio (2.05) and leads that category by a wide margin in conference games only (2.60). She has committed just one turnover in each of the last two games.
* La'Tangela Atkinson leads the ACC's freshmen in rebounding and is a close second in scoring. She ranks second in steals and field goal percentage and third in assists.
* Coretta Brown recently was named a finalist for three national awards. She is one of 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award, given to the country's top senior player. She is one of 12 finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award, given to the nation's top point guard. And she is one of 20 finalists for the Naismith Player of the Year Award.
UNC's statistical leaders
Scoring: Coretta Brown (14.0 points per game)
Rebounding: La'Tangela Atkinson (8.3 per game)
Assists: Leah Metcalf (4.7 per game)
Steals: Nikita Bell (2.7 per game)
Blocks: Candace Sutton (1.5 per game)
Minutes per game: Coretta Brown (33.8 per game)
Scouting the Virginia Cavaliers
Virginia is 14-12 on the season, 8-7 in ACC play, and in third place in the conference heading into the final game. UVa has had a week off since defeating Florida State 63-54 win last Sunday. The win was the Cavaliers' fourth in a row. The team won six of its last seven, with its only loss coming at Duke, since a 74-54 loss at UNC on Jan. 30.
Sophomore guard Cherrise Graham leads Virginia in scoring with 14.7 points per game. Next is sophomore forward Brandi Teamer, who is averaging 14.0 but scoring 15.1 in conference games. Teamer also is the squad's top rebounder, averaging 7.1 boards overall and 7.4 against ACC teams. Sophomore guard LaTonya Blue leads the team in assists with 3.3 per game and adds 8.7 points, 9.4 against conference foes.
Virginia is coached by Debbie Ryan, who is 573-223 in her 26th year with the program.
The North Carolina-Virginia series
Sunday's game will be the 62nd meeting of the women's basketball teams from Virginia and UNC. The series dates back to the 1975-76 season, when UNC beat the Cavaliers 49-40 in Charlottesville in the teams' first matchup, Feb. 6, 1976.
UNC leads the series 31-30 after winning this year's first matchup, 74-54 in Chapel Hill on Jan. 30. The Tar Heels have won the last three games in the series and 12 of the last 16. Prior to that, Virginia had won 21 of 23 games, including a 14-game streak that lasted from the 1986-87 season - Sylvia Hatchell's first as the coach at UNC - until the 1994 ACC Championship game.
* Results of the last three matchups, all double-digit wins by UNC, are atypical in the series between UNC and Virginia. Nine of the last 16 matchups have been decided by five points or less. During that span, the teams have played to overtime on four occasions: two single overtime contests, one double overtime and one triple overtime.
