Jan. 28, 2006
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Tipoff
The North Carolina women's basketball team, 19-0 overall (6-0 ACC) and off to the best start in school history, travels to Durham Sunday to take on Duke in a matchup of the country's only undefeated teams. Tipoff at Cameron Indoor Stadium is 7 p.m. and the game will be televised live by ESPN2.
The Tar Heels are ranked third in this week's Associated Press poll and second in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. Duke is second in the A.P. poll and first in the coaches' poll.
On the air
Sunday's game will be televised nationally by ESPN2. Beth Mowins will handle the play-by-play and Kara Lawson will provide color commentary.
The game also will air on the Tar Heel Radio Network, which includes eight stations across the state of North Carolina. WCHL-AM 1360 in Chapel Hill is the flagship. Taylor Zarzour is the Tar Heels' play-by-play announcer and Jan Boxill is the color commentator.
Radio broadcasts and live game statistics also are available on the internet at www.TarHeelBlue.com.
Next up
UNC will face all three of its in-state ACC rivals in a one-week span. After playing at Wake Forest Friday and Duke Sunday, the Tar Heels host NC State on Thursday at Carmichael Auditorium. Tipoff is 7 p.m. for the schools' second meeting of the season. UNC beat the Wolfpack 65-53 in Raleigh on Jan. 15 in what was the 700th career win for Tar Heel coach Sylvia Hatchell.
UNC at a glance
2005-06 record 19-0 (6-0 ACC)
2004-05 record 30-4 (12-2 ACC)
Current rankings 3rd A.P., 2nd ESPN/USA Today
Head coach Sylvia Hatchell
Career record 703-266 (31st season)
Record at UNC 431-186 (20th season)
Assistant head coach Andrew Calder
Assistant coaches Tracey Williams-Johnson, 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. 8,010)
Carmichael Auditorium press row number (919) 843-9509
Briefly ...
At 19-0, the Tar Heels are off to the best start in program history. UNC opened 18-0 in the 1994-95 season before falling at Duke in the 19th game. Carolina is one of two NCAA Div. I teams that remain undefeated, along with Duke.
UNC leads the series with Duke 39-28 after winning all three of last year's meetings, two in the regular season and one in the ACC Tournament championship game. Prior to last year, Duke had won 12 in a row in the series.
Sunday's game at Cameron Indoor Stadium is sold out. General admission tickets still remain for the second UNC-Duke meeting of the season, on Feb. 25 at Carmichael Auditorium. All reserved seats (the entire lower level) are already sold out. For tickets, click here or call (800) 722-HEEL (4335).
The Tar Heels are one victory away from registering their 18th 20-win season in school history, their 13th in the last 15 years and their fifth in a row.
Sunday's game is good for one point in the Carlyle Cup competition, an annual all-sports battle between UNC and Duke. The Carlyle contest is in its sixth year and is currently tied at 5-5.
Tar Heel sophomore Erlana Larkins is the reigning ACC Player of the Week. She averaged 22 points and seven rebounds in wins last week against Georgia Tech and Florida State.
UNC's Erlana Larkins and Duke's Abby Waner were teammates on the 2005 USA Basketball Women's U19 World Championship team, which was coached by Duke's Gail Goestenkors and won a gold medal at the competition in Tunisia in July. Larkins served as a tri-captain of the squad.
North Carolina's current ranking of No. 2 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll matches the team's highest ever in an in-season poll. UNC made its only appearance at No. 1 in the postseason coaches' poll in 1994 after winning the NCAA title. (Carolina has never been No. 1 in the Associated Press poll.) The Tar Heels were last No. 2 in the March 8 and March 13 coaches' polls of the 2004-05 season.
UNC is 4-0 this season against teams ranked in the A.P. poll, with wins over No. 16 Arizona State, No. 8 Connecticut, No. 19 Vanderbilt and No. 25 NC State. The Tar Heels were 6-2 last season against teams ranked in the A.P. poll.
With two three-pointers against Florida State on Jan. 22, Ivory Latta became just the 12th player in ACC history to hit 200 threes in her career. Latta has has made at least one three-pointer in 47 consecutive games.
With the Jan. 15 win at NC State, UNC coach Sylvia Hatchell became the fifth NCAA Division I women's basketball coach to earn 700 career wins. She is in her 31st season as a head coach and her 20th season at UNC.
With four blocks against FSU on Jan. 22, sophomore LaToya Pringle vaulted from 10th place up to seventh on UNC's career blocks chart with a total of 79. One of the former stars she passed was current Carolina assistant coach Charlotte Smith-Taylor, who had 78 blocks in her career and now shares eighth place with another well-known former Tar Heel, Marion Jones.
The Tar Heels finished their nonconference slate without a loss for the first time since the 1994-95 season, when Carolina won its first 18 games, including 12 nonconference contests.
Carolina has won 24 consecutive games at Carmichael Auditorium and 29 in a row in Chapel Hill (including five at the Dean E. Smith Center). The total is a school record and ranks as the second-longest current home winning streak in the nation.
Team captains for the 2005-06 season are senior La'Tangela Atkinson, junior Ivory Latta and sophomore Erlana Larkins.
Noting the numbers
Seven different players - La'Tangela Atkinson, Heather Claytor, Christina Dewitt, Erlana Larkins, Ivory Latta, Camille Little, and LaToya Pringle - have led the team in scoring or tied for the team lead in scoring at least once this season.
As a team, Carolina is shooting .393 from three-point range, up from .317 last season. The school record is .363, set in 1992. Eleven of the 14 players on the UNC roster have made at least one three-pointer this season.
Freshman Heather Claytor and junior Ivory Latta rank third and fifth in the ACC statistics for three-point percentage, Claytor at .481 and Latta at .453. Claytor's percentage would have ranked fifth in the nation this week, but she is one three-pointer short of having the NCAA required minimum of 2.0 makes per game. Latta ranks 10th in the NCAA in three-point percentage.
Junior Erlana Larkins' field goal percentage of .647 is second in the ACC and would have ranked seventh in the nation in this week's NCAA statistics, but she is just shy of the required 5.0 field goals per game, currently averaging 4.6.
Only three teams - Arizona State (.560), Vanderbilt (.489) and Clemson (.411) - have shot better than .400 against UNC this season. Opponents are shooting .349 from the field against the Tar Heels
Recent trends
Freshman Christina Dewitt was 0-3 from three-point range in her career heading into Friday's game at Wake Forest. Against the Demon Deacons, she went 4-for-4 from long range and 7-for-8 overall, including one two-pointer that was inches from being another three. In 19 minutes of play off the bench, she finished with a career-high 22 points, more than double her previous high of nine.
UNC has been outrebounded just three times this season, but two of those have come in the last three games. Georgia Tech beat the Tar Heels 39-35 on the boards on Jan. 18 and FSU won the rebounding battle 44-38 on Jan. 22. Carolina returned to a positive margin against Wake Forest, outrebounding the Demon Deacons 42-28 behind eight each from La'Tangela Atkinson and LaToya Pringle.
Junior Erlana Larkins was 14-for-14 from the free throw line against Georgia Tech on Jan. 18, but has shot 11-for-18 over the two games since then (6-10 vs. FSU, 5-8 vs Wake Forest). She has been almost perfect from the field, though, 8-for-11 against Georgia Tech and 2-for-2 at Wake Forest.
Playing in her hometown of Winston-Salem on Friday, Camille Little tied her season high with 17 points on 8-for-11 shooting from the field. Her other 17-point game of the season came at Connecticut.
With 11 three-pointers in the win at Wake Forest Friday, UNC reached double digits in threes for the sixth time this season. Carolina leads the ACC in three-pointers per game (and ranks third in the nation) with 8.3 overall, 8.5 in conference matchups.
UNC's statistical leaders (Followed by ACC rank)
Scoring: Ivory Latta, 16.8 points per game (3)
Rebounding: Erlana Larkins, 6.7 per game (12)
Assists: Latta, 5.4 per game (4)
Steals: Larkins, 2.3 per game (T6)
Blocks: LaToya Pringle, 1.8 per game (7)
Minutes: Latta, 28.5 per game
Field goal percentage: Larkins, .647 (88-136) (2)
Three-point percentage: Heather Claytor, .481 (37-77) (3)
Free throw percentage: Alex Miller, .913 (21-23); Latta, .873 (62-71) (2)
Scouting the Duke Blue Devils
Duke is 20-0 overall and 7-0 in ACC play following a 97-65 win at Clemson on Thursday. Senior Monique Currie leads Duke in scoring with 15.3 points per game. Three others also average double figures - junior Lindsey Harding at 11.7, senior Mistie Williams at 10.9 and freshman Abby Waner at 10.0. Junior Alison Bales is the team's top rebounder with 6.6 per game and sophomore Chante Black is just behind her, averaging 6.1 boards per game. Between the two of them, Bales and Black have 101 blocks this year, with Bales averaging 3.0 per game and Black averaging 2.1.
The Blue Devils are coached by Gail Goestenkors, who is in her 14th season with the program.
The series against Duke
Sunday's UNC-Duke game will be the 68th meeting in a series that dates back to the 1975-76 season, North Carolina's second as a varsity program. The Tar Heels lead the series 39-28, with both teams having enjoyed long stretches of success.
UNC won all three of last year's meetings - 56-51 in Chapel Hill on Jan. 24, 77-68 in Durham on Feb.. 27 and 88-67 in the ACC Tournament championship game on March 7 - but prior to that, Duke had won 12 in a row and 15 of 16. North Carolina won the first seven games in the series and 15 of the first 16. The Tar Heels also had streaks of five in a row (in the late 1980s) and six in a row (early 1990s).
In addition to their home-and-home games, UNC and Duke have met in the ACC Tournament title game in five of the last six years. The Blue Devils won in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004, while UNC won in 2005.
Prior to last season's UNC win at Cameron, Duke had beaten the Tar Heels seven times in a row in Durham. Carolina won 87-73 in the 1996-97 season, then the Blue Devils won the next seven by an average margin of 21 points, including a 43-point win (101-58) in 1999-2000 and a 34-point win (97-63) in 2002-03. The last time UNC won back-to-back games at Duke was in the early '90s, when the Tar Heels took three in a row in Durham (69-64 in 1991-92, 84-63 in 1992-93 and 79-68 in 1993-94).
UNC's only previous win over a team ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press poll came last season, when the Tar Heels beat second-ranked Duke 77-68 at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Feb. 27. Carolina is 1-8 against teams ranked No. 2 in the AP poll, 1-19 against teams ranked No. 1.
Battle for the Carlyle Cup
Sunday's women's basketball matchup between UNC and Duke is worth one point in the race for the Carlyle Cup, the annual all-sports competition between the two schools. This year's battle is tied at 5-5,
Carolina claimed the Cup in 2004-05 with a 15-11 tally, which included two points for sweeping the women's basketball series.
The competition is now in its sixth year. For more information, go to www.CarlyleCup.com.
