University of North Carolina Athletics
UNC Tips Off Season Friday Against Elon
November 18, 2004 | Women's Basketball
Nov. 18, 2004
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Tipping off
North Carolina opens the 2004-05 season on Friday with a 7 p.m. home game at Carmichael Auditorium against Elon, which is also playing its season opener. The Tar Heels begin the season ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press poll and No. 12 in the coaches' poll.
Up next
On Sunday, the Tar Heels take on No. 4 Connecticut in the Jimmy V Classic in Raleigh. UNC and UConn meet at 2:30 p.m. in the first game of the doubleheader at the RBC Center. No. 1 Tennessee and NC State play in the second game.
On the air
Friday's game will be broadcast on radio on WCHL-AM 1360, the flagship station of the Tar Heel Radio Network. Jones Angell handles the play-by-play and Adam Pohl provides color commentary.
UNC at a glance
2004-05 record 0-0
2003-04 record 24-7 (12-4 ACC)
Current rankings Ninth A.P., 12th ESPN/USA Today
Head coach Sylvia Hatchell
Career record 654-262 (30th season)
Record at UNC 382-182 (19th season)
Assistant head coach Andrew Calder
Assistant coaches Tracey Williams, Charlotte Smith-Taylor
Media contact Dana Gelin
Gelin's phone/email (919) 962-0083/dgelin@uncaa.unc.edu
UNC athletics website www.TarHeelBlue.com
UNC ticket office (919) 962-2296, (800) 722-4335
Home arena Carmichael Auditorium (cap. 10,180)
Press row number (919) 843-9509
Tickets
General admission tickets to UNC women's basketball games are $7 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. A limited number of reserved seats are also available, and those tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for students and seniors.
Tickets may be purchased at the Carmichael Auditorium ticket window prior to the game or through the UNC ticket office by calling (919) 962-2296 or (800) 722-HEEL.
North Carolina students, faculty and staff are admitted free with their UNC One Cards.
News to note
The Elon-UNC Series
Carolina leads the series with Elon 4-1. The Tar Heels won the teams' most recent meeting 83-50 on Dec. 17, 2002, in Chapel Hill.
The teams met twice in 1974-75, UNC's first season as a varsity program. The Tar Heels won 70-68 on Jan. 17, 1975, in the program's second official game. (The first was a 74-47 win at NC State on Jan. 13.) Elon's win in the series came later that season, 83-71 on Feb. 21.
The last Elon-UNC meeting: Dec. 17, 2002
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - After a nine-day break for finals, the North Carolina women's basketball team returned to action with an 83-50 win over Elon at Carmichael Auditorium. Freshman guard La'Tangela Atkinson led UNC with 16 points and a career-best 12 rebounds, her third double-double in eight collegiate games.
Also in double figures for the 13th-ranked Tar Heels (7-1) were sophomore forward Nikita Bell (12 points), senior guard Coretta Brown (10 points) and junior center Candace Sutton (10 points). Sutton added 10 rebounds for her first double-double of the season as UNC outrebounded the visitors 56-22.
Sophomore guard Jessica Williams led Elon (2-4) with 16 points, all in the second half. She was five-for-nine from three-point range and hit one of her two free throw attempts. Three other players added eight points each, including junior forward Ivey Ghee, who led the Phoenix with five rebounds.
The teams combined for 57 turnovers, 37 of them in the first half. Carolina's 26 turnovers were a season high to that point.
"I thought it was pretty obvious we hadn't played in a while," UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said. "I don't want to make any excuses, though. Elon was hard to shake and has some good shooters."
Looking Ahead
Next up for UNC is a meeting with No. 4 Connecticut in the Jimmy V Classic in Raleigh.
The series between UNC and UConn is tied at 2-2. The Huskies won the most recent meeting, 94-74 in Storrs, Conn., on Nov. 15, 2001, in the Preseason WNIT semifinals. Leah Metcalf, then a freshman playing in her third game as a Tar Heel, led Carolina with 25 points, a performance that remains her career high.
Closing in on 1,000
Several UNC players start the season within striking distance of the 1,000-points mark for their careers. Senior forward/guard Nikita Bell heads into the Elon game with 861 career points (129 away) and senior guard Leah Metcalf has 838 points (162 away).
Both players are also making a mark on the program record book. Bell heads into her senior season already ranked 10th on UNC's career steals list with 217, 10 away from taking over ninth place.
Metcalf ranks seventh on UNC's career list for three-pointers made with 127, 17 from moving into sixth. She is eighth on the assists list with 392, four from moving up to seventh.
UNC in the polls
After finishing last season ranked No. 12 in the AP poll and No. 21 in the coaches' poll, the Tar Heels have made higher preseason showings in both. UNC's preseason rankings of No. 9 in the AP poll and No. 12 in the coaches' poll are the team's highest at the start of the season since 1999-2000. That year, Carolina started out at No. 9 in the AP poll and No. 8 in the coaches' poll.
Tar Heels picked first in ACC
By a slim margin, North Carolina was predicted to win the 2005 ACC title by a vote of the media at ACC Media Day on Oct. 29. The voting also gave UNC two members of the Preseason All-ACC team in sophomores Ivory Latta and Camille Little. They were joined by Duke's Monique Currie, Maryland's Shay Doron and Miami's Tamara James.
The Tar Heels received 20 of 40 first-place votes and Duke followed with 18. Maryland, with two first-place votes, finished third. ACC newcomers Miami and Virginia Tech were selected to finish in the fourth and fifth spots, respectively. Virginia was sixth, followed in the seventh slot by the NC State Wolfpack. Clemson and Florida State tied for eighth place, while Georgia Tech and Wake Forest 10th and 11th spots.
UNC last won the ACC crown in 1998. The last time the Tar Heels were tabbed as the preseason favorite was heading into the 1999-2000 season.
Duke's Currie was selected as the league's preseason Player of the Year, while Terrapin freshman Crystal Langhorne was tabbed ACC preseason Rookie of the Year.
Exhibition Wrap-ups
UNC 101, EA Sports 69, Nov. 4: Senior Nikita Bell led the way with 21 points and four other players joined her in double figures as the North Carolina women's basketball team beat EA Sports 101-69 in the first exhibition game of the 2004-05 season.
Freshman forward Erlana Larkins, playing in a Tar Heel uniform for the first time, hit all six of her shots from the field and both of her free throws to score 14 points in 18 minutes on the court. Senior guard Leah Metcalf had 18 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, and sophomore guard Ivory Latta scored 15 points and had nine assists. Sophomore forward Camille Little turned in a double-double with 11 points and a team-high 11 rebounds. Bell had nine rebounds to go with her team-best scoring total.
Former Arkansas guard India Lewis led EA Sports, a traveling team made up of former collegiate players, with 13 points off the bench. Katie Bulger (West Virginia) and Mary Cofield (Iowa State) scored 12 points each and Max Nhassago (Old Dominion) had 10.
"I saw a lot of good things out there," UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said. "The tempo was good and we had a lot of assists. I was very pleased with Erlana. She's going to be a force - tonight she showed just a little of what she can do.
"Some of our shots were not as good as I wanted and our defense broke down a few times, but it's good to have a game under our belt." With a starting lineup of Bell, Latta, Little, Metcalf and senior forward Kenya McBee, the Tar Heels didn't trail after the first three minutes of the game. UNC led 49-33 at halftime and had outrebounded EA Sports 30-16.
All 12 healthy players saw action for UNC. (Freshman Laydrillia Grant did not dress because of an injury.) Carolina's biggest lead of the game was 36 points (101-65) after a field goal by junior Tiffany Tucker with 53 seconds to play.
UNC finished the game with 24 assists, 18 of them by guards Latta and Metcalf, and 15 steals, six by Little. The Tar Heels shot 50 percent from the field to EA Sports's 36.8 and outrebounded the visitors 52-38.
UNC 92, Athletes in Action 57, Nov. 16: Sophomore forward Camille Little's 24 points led four Tar Heels in double figures as the North Carolina women's basketball team beat Athletes in Action 92-57 in the final exhibition game of the preseason. Carolina opens the 2004-05 season on Friday with a 7 p.m. home game against Elon.
"We wanted an up-tempo game, which I felt like we got," UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell said. "I thought we shot well at times. I saw a lot of good things. We've had a lot of practice games, so now we're just ready for the real thing to start."
Little grabbed nine rebounds to go with her 24 points, which included back-to-back three-pointers early in the second half. Sophomore guard Ivory Latta had 17 points on six-for-seven shooting, handed out seven assists and committed just one turnover. Senior guard Leah Metcalf scored 13 points and added seven assists without a single turnover. Junior guard/forward La'Tangela Atkinson was the fourth Carolina player in double figures with 12 points. Freshman forward Erlana Larkins led UNC with 11 rebounds, six of them on the offensive boards, and scored seven points.
Jessi Stomski, who played at Wisconsin, led Athletes in Action with 17 points and Katie Voigt, also a Wisconsin alum, came off the bench to add 13. Former Maine player Julie Veilleux added 10.
UNC led by as many as 13 midway through the first half, but Athletes in action closed the gap to three, 36-33, on a three-pointer by Voigt with 1:55 to play before halftime. The score was 40-33 at the break before the Tar Heels opened with a 14-0 run to start the half and take over the game. After the first three minutes of play, the game was never closer than 20 points.
UNC shot 67.9 percent in the second half, 55.7 for the game, while Athletes in Action shot 28.6 percent in the second half and 35.1 for the game.
Senior Nikita Bell sat out the contest as a penalty for a sub-par practice. All 11 players who dressed for the game saw action.
