2019-20 Season Review

bench, celebration
University of North Carolina Women's Basketball v North Carolina State
Carmichael Arena
Chapel Hill, NC
Thursday, January 9, 2020

Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati

March 24, 2020 | Women's Basketball

By: UNC Athletic Communications

Season at a Glance
Behind a balanced scoring attack and solid team defense, UNC opened coach Courtney Banghart's first season in Chapel Hill with an eight-game winning streak and ultimately finished 16-14 overall, 7-11 in ACC play.
Seven seniors finished their Carolina careers and were honored following the final home game of the season, on March 1 vs. Duke.
Three Tar Heels earned All-ACC honors – Janelle Bailey (All-ACC 1st team), Taylor Koenen (All-ACC HM, All-ACC Academic), Malu Tshitenge (All-ACC Freshman Team, All-ACC Academic).

As always, it's a great day to be a Tar Heel. 🎥: 19-20 Season Recap 🍿🏀#GoHeels | #InPursuit pic.twitter.com/gc7gQF58nb — Carolina Women's Basketball (@uncwbb) March 24, 2020

By the Numbers
• All five UNC starters averaged double figure scoring, led by Taylor Koenen with 14.7 points per game.
• UNC ranked second in the ACC in scoring (73.1 ppg), free throw percentage (.739), assist/turnover ratio (1.14) and turnover margin (+2.87).
• Freshman Malu Tshitenge led the league in offensive rebounds (4.13 per game). Senior Shayla Bennett led the league in assist/turnover ratio (2.09) and ranked third in assists (5.23). Janelle Bailey was second in total rebounds (9.3) and in defensive rebounds (7.15).
• Two Tar Heels ranked in the league's top six in free throw shooting: Bennett at No. 4 (.835) and Bailey at No. 6 (.807). No other school had two in the top 10.
• In the final NCAA rankings, UNC was 13th in fewest total turnovers, 18th in fewest turnovers per game, 23rd in free throws made, 34th in assist/turnover ratio and 35th in scoring offense
• Individually, Tshitenge ranked 15th nationally in offensive rebounds. Bailey ranked 21st in defensive rebounding and Bennett ranked 24th in assists.
• All five UNC starters led the scoring effort in at least two games.

News and Notes
• For the second year in a row, junior Janelle Bailey was a top-10 finalist for the Lisa Leslie Award, which goes to the nation's top center.
• Senior Taylor Koenen was one of 50 senior conference student-athletes to receive ACC Weaver-James-Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarships/Awards. She was only women's basketball player to earn the prestigious honor in 2019-20.
• On 17 occasions during the season a Tar Heel played the entirety of a game. Shayla Bennett did so nine times, Taylor Koenen four, Janelle Bailey three and Madinah Muhammad one.
• UNC lost just four times when shooting better than 40 percent from the field. The Tar Heels hit 46.2 percent of their shots in the loss to Louisville, 40.7 in the loss at NC State, 44.3 at BC and 44.1 in the ACC Tournament first round.
• The NC State home game marked the largest UNC deficit in a win during the season. The Tar Heels trailed by 14 in the second quarter before coming back to win 66-60.
• Taylor Koenen became just the fourth player in program history to total 1,000 points, 700 rebounds and 300 assists. (The four players who previously reached those marks – Tonya Sampson, Erlana Larkins, Rashanda McCants and La'Tangela Atkinson – all went on to play professionally in the WNBA or ABL.) She's just the third who adds 100 three-pointers to those totals, with the others being Sampson and McCants. Only one other, Sampson, reached 1,000 points, 800 rebounds, 300 assists and 100 threes.

Three Past 1,000
When Taylor Koenen scored her 1,000th career point on Jan. 12 at Florida State, she became the third member of the UNC starting lineup to have reached that milestone. Janelle Bailey got there in the final game of her sophomore season, in the 2019 NCAA Tournament first round. Madinah Muhammad reached 1,000 points during her junior year at Mississippi and came to UNC with 1,079 career points. With 378 as a senior, Muhammad finished her career with 1,457, the highest career total on the 2019-20 team.

Bailey on the Boards
Janelle Bailey ended her junior year just two points away from reaching 1,400 for her career. She'll become the 25th Tar Heel to score that many. During the 2019-20 season she grabbed her 800th rebound and will become the 13th player in school history with 1,400 points and 800 rebounds.
• Bailey passed 1,000 career points in the final game of her sophomore season, the 2019 NCAA first-round matchup with California. With 15 points in that game, she finished her first two years with 1,007. She was honored for that feat on Dec. 28, 2019, before UNC's game against Yale.
• Only one player in program history – Dawn Royster – reached 1,000 points and 600 rebounds quicker than Bailey. Royster passed 600 rebounds as a sophomore and started her junior year just seven points shy of 1,000.
Thirty for 30: Bailey, wearing jersey No. 30 in honor of sidelined teammate Jaelynn Murray, registered her 30th career double-double on Dec. 5, 2019, against Illinois with 13 points and 11 boards.
With 23 points and 17 rebounds against Virginia on Jan. 30, she recorded her 11th double-double of the season and 37th of her Tar Heel career.

Stellar Start
Freshman forward Malu Tshitenge got off to an outstanding start at UNC. A starter in all 30 games, she averaged 10.5 points and 7.4 rebounds. She led the team in field goal percentage (58.2) and ranked second in rebounding.
• She was voted to the All-ACC Freshman Team by both the coaches and the Blue Ribbon Panel.
• She led the ACC in offensive rebounding and ranked 15th nationally with 4.13 per game.
• After averaging 13.0 points and 12.5 rebounds in wins over Navy (Nov. 11) and Charleston Southern (Nov. 15), she was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Week on Nov. 18. It was her first honor as a Tar Heel and UNC's first weekly honor of the season.

MVP Muhammad
Senior guard Madinah Muhammad (known to her teammates as "Dino") sat out the 2018-19 season after transferring to UNC from Mississippi, and she announced her return loudly during the Cancun Challenge. In two games there over the Thanksgiving break, Muhammad averaged 22 points, leading the Tar Heels in wins over Temple and Missouri. Over the two games she was 10-for-16 (62.5 percent) from three-point range and also averaged 6.0 rebounds. With her mother, Rasheda, in from Chicago to watch her daughter play for the first time in a Tar Heel uniform, Muhammad was named MVP of the six-team Riviera Division.
For the season, she averaged 12.6 points, fourth on the team. She led the Tar Heels with 20 points in the ACC opener against Pitt and scored a team-high 21 in the loss at Wake Forest
• She scored 17 points in the win at Georgia Tech on Jan. 23, including seven of the Tar Heels' 13 points in OT.

Lineup Notes
Although there were three seniors in the starting lineup, Taylor Koenen is the only one who was in her fourth year in the program. Madinah Mohammad was in her first year playing for UNC after sitting out one season as a transfer. Shayla Bennett was in her second year with the Tar Heels after playing two years in junior college.
• Four players – Jaelynn Murray, Emily Sullivan, Naomi Van Nes and Olivia Smith – were sidelined for the entire season or the majority of it while rehabilitating injuries.

Captain Koenen
On Sept. 25, just before UNC's first official practice of the fall, coach Courtney Banghart gathered her players in the office conference room and announced that senior Taylor Koenen would serve as the team captain for 2019-20. As Banghart met with her players and talked to them about goals for the season, she also asked each one who should lead the team and Koenen was the common thread, mentioned by each player.
Koenen came into the role with some experience: She represents her team on UNC's Student-Athlete Advisory Council and in 2018 she was one of three student-athletes selected to serve on the ACC Autonomy Committee. In that role, she attended the NCAA Convention in Orlando in January of 2019.
A business administration major, Koenen was named to the All-ACC Academic Team in her sophomore, junior and senior years. After starting 12 of 31 games as a freshman, she started all 31 her sophomore year, all 33 as a junior and all 30 as a senior.

A Number with Meaning
Janelle Bailey announced the week the season started that she would wear jersey No. 30 in honor of teammate Jaelynn Murray, who tore her ACL in the team's second exhibition game and missed the season. Murray was listed as No. 44 for 2019-20 and the two plan to switch back when Murray returns to the court.
The two came on their recruiting visit together and have been roommates since arriving on campus in the fall of 2017. Bailey got the idea to honor her friend shortly after the injury. "I just wanted to do something for her," Bailey said. "She's passionate about the team and really into the game. She makes everyone feel better. I wanted to do that for her."
"I was flabbergasted when I heard," Murray said. "Janelle and I have been close for a couple years now – the bond has just gotten stronger and stronger over the years. To know that she'll honor me this way is very meaningful."
Bailey had worn jersey No. 44 since she was a freshman at Providence Day School in Charlotte. She started wearing it in honor of her older sister, Gigi, who also wore the number before she stopped playing basketball.
Murray played in 30 games in 2018-19 and started two. She was expected to be a valuable piece of the Tar Heels' puzzle in 2019-20, and even after her injury, that remained true.
"Jaelynn is the heart of the team," UNC coach Courtney Banghart said. "The consistency with which she brings positive energy is remarkable. She's one of those players who can help you almost as much off the court as she can on. I feel horrible for her, but I'm grateful that her impact is so other-centered that she'll still be able to help us and be a part of the team."