Women's Basketball to Take on Southern Mississippi Wednesday
12/29/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 29, 2009
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Following an eight-day break from play, the women's basketball team (7-5) returns to the hardwood Wednesday to take on Southern Mississippi (4-7) at Coleman Coliseum. Tipoff is slated for 5:00 p.m. (CST) with the game being the front-end of a doubleheader with the men's basketball team.
"Coming off the break we've had four really good practices," said head coach Wendell Hudson. "We've been concentrating on renewing the way we played last week and also added a couple of new things. We're looking forward to seeing that all come together tomorrow in our final tune-up before we begin conference play."
Last time out, the Crimson Tide put forth a dominant performance over Presbyterian College winning 71-38 on Dec. 21. In that contest, sophomore Ericka Russell led all scorers with 13 points followed by junior Varisia Raffington with 11 points and six rebounds. In addition, sophomore Carmen McCoy added a career-high tying nine points and four rebounds. For the game, Alabama scored 36 points off 26 Blue Hose turnovers while allowing a season-low 38 points.
Southern Mississippi enters Wednesday's contest winless on the road in five attempts. Most recently, the Golden Eagles dropped a 59-40 decision at home to Arkansas-Little Rock on Dec. 22. Southern Mississippi had 29 turnovers in the game and took just 39 shots from the floor. Senior Candace Rucker led the Golden Eagles in scoring with 11 points. Redshirt senior Pauline Love is Southern Mississippi's leader in points and rebounds on the season with averages of 15.2 and 12.6, respectively.
This season's meeting marks the fifth in the series between the two teams, however, the Tide and Golden Eagles have not met since Dec. 3, 1988 where Southern Mississippi won 84-79 on its home court. Alabama's only win came in the third game on Dec. 20, 1987 by a score of 88-76 in Tuscaloosa. The initial meeting took place during the 1980 season.
Admission for the women's basketball game is $5 for adults and $3 for youth 18 and under. Season tickets are currently on sale for $40 for the general public and $25 for University of Alabama faculty and staff. Tickets can be purchased online by clicking here or by calling the Alabama Ticket Office at 1-877-TIDETIX (843-3849).
For those unable to attend, live stats and web streaming will be available and can be found by clicking here. In addition, a radio broadcast of the action can be found on the Crimson Tide Sports Network. For local channel information, click here.
