Women?s Basketball Heads to Samford on Tuesday
11/12/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The University of Alabama women’s basketball team will hit the road for the first time this season. Alabama will face instate rival Samford on Tuesday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Birmingham. The game will be the grand opening of the new Pete Hanna Center. Both squads are coming off an opening game loss. The Tide were edged by reigning Conference USA champs Tulane 64-56 on Saturday while the Bulldogs were downed by LSU 86-38 in Baton Rouge on Friday. Mick Gillispie will call the action on CTSN.
Alabama squares off with the Birmingham-based Samford Bulldogs for the eighth time tomorrow. UA sports a perfect 7-0 record against its instate foe coming into tonight’s game, including a 3-0 mark in games played in Birmingham. Alabama and Samford opened the 2006-07 season against each other with Alabama earning a 62-53 victory in Coleman Coliseum. The first meeting between the two schools was on Dec. 2, 1997, a 104-43 Alabama blowout victory in Tuscaloosa. Samford head coach Mike Morris was on the sidelines for the most recent UA-Samford game and is 0-2 against the Tide in his career. Stephany Smith is 1-0 against the Bulldogs and has extensive experience against the Ohio Valley Conference, of which Samford is now a member. Smith’s teams at Middle Tennessee State were members of the OVC prior to joining the Sun Belt Conference. Smith is 41-18 all-time against OVC teams and her Blue Raider teams won the OVC regular season title in 1997-98, her first season as a head coach and captured the OVC Tournament title the following season, MTSU’s last in the Ohio Valley.
The Alabama women’s basketball team opened its regular season with a 64-56 loss to reigning Conference USA champions Tulane. The Tide made a push towards the end of regulation but the Green Wave held on for the victory. Alabama held Tulane to just six field goals and a 23 percent shooting clip in the first half. The two teams were in the midst of a defensive battle as the game went into the half tied at 25. In her first collegiate game, freshman Daleisha Carn led the Tide with 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Camilla Blands tallied nine points on 3-of-8 shooting and was 2-for-5 from beyond the arc. Talisha Chandler added a game-high 10 rebounds and chipped in seven points. Tulane was led by Ashley Langford and her 18 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Chassity Brown added 15 points on 3-of-6 shooting and was 9-for-10 from the charity stripe.
The Samford women’s basketball team is coming off a successful 18-13 2006-07 campaign and a 12-8 Ohio Valley Conference mark...in the preseason OVC poll voted on by the league’s head coaches and sports information directors, Samford was picked to finish second with 161 points and two first-place votes...defending conference champion Southeast Missouri is picked to win the league with 199 points and 19 first-place votes...Samford fell in its opener to LSU by the score of 86-38...Samford was led by Monica Maxwell and her eight points and six rebounds...Emily London grabbed six boards off the bench...the Bulldogs only shot 28 percent from the floor and 26 percent from three...in the 2006-07 season Samford averaged just over 61 points per game and shot 43 percent from the floor and 33 percent from three..the Bulldogs averaged 31 boards a night and 12 assists per game...Alex Munday returns as their leading scorer with 14 per game in 2006-07..Munday also shot over 40 percent from beyond the arc.
Tonight’s game, besides being a matchup of instate rivals who reside only 55 miles
apart, is a family affair in another way...Tide assistant coach Lisa Nuxol-Wilson coaches against her younger sister, Sara, in the matchup with Samford...Sara Nuxol is very familiar with the Tide coaching staff... she signed with Stephany Smith when Smith was head coach at Middle Tennessee and played her freshman season on Smith’s last Blue Raider team that advanced to the NCAA Second Round...after
Smith came to Alabama, Nuxol transferred to Birmingham Southern... when BSC made the decision to go to the Division III level, Nuxol moved on to Samford, who had recruited her out of high school.
Freshman guard Daleisha Carn made an impression in her first collegiate game...the newcomer recorded 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting and grabbed four rebounds...Carn was also solid from the line, connecting on 3-of-4 shots from the charity stripe...the newcomer also handed out her first assist in 25 minutes of action...two other freshmen got the nod in the starting lineup for the Tide...Caitlin Hollifield and Tierney Jenkins played nearly 20 minutes a piece...Hollifield tallied three points and grabbed three boards while Jenkins scored six points and tallied four boards...Jenkins also knocked down 4-of-5 shots from the free throw line...Varisia Raffington also saw action in her first collegiate game...Raffington played four minutes and took two shots.
Alabama will return home to the friendly confines of Coleman Coliseum to host Arkansas State on Sunday, November 18 for a 2 p.m. matinee...the Indians are coming off a 77-67 loss to South Dakota State...ASU will host its home opener on Tuesday, Nov. 13 against BYU...the Indians won both its exhibition outings...the Tide fell to the Indians in the last meeting by the score of 73-56 in Jonesboro, Ark.
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