Wake Forest Athletics
Women's Hoops Hosts Clemson In Final Home Game
2/26/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 26, 2003
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WFU WOMEN'S BASKETBALL NEWS & NOTES
Game 26
Thurs., Feb. 27, 2003
Wake Forest (12-13, 2-12 ACC) vs. Clemson (13-12, 5-9 ACC)
Lawrence Joel Coliseum (14,665)/Winston-Salem, N.C.
Tipoff: 7:00 pm
Radio: Broadcast on the internet at www.WakeForestSports.com. Carter Blackburn and Roper Halverson call the action.
Records: WFU is 12-13 on the season, 2-12 in ACC play after suffering a heartbreaker, 65-62, at NC State on Sunday. Clemson is 13-12 overall, 5-9 in league play after a 78-63 loss to Georgia Tech in its last outing.
The Series: Thursday's game is the 47th meeting between the two conference rivals. Clemson leads the series 38-8. The two teams split the meetings in 2001-02, but the Tigers won this year's first meeting in Clemson, 61-45.
The Coaches: Deacon coach Charlene Curtis is in her sixth season at WFU, where she has compiled a 54-110 record. Now in her 18th season, her career has produced a 216-260 mark. Clemson coach Jim Davis is 329-162 in his 16th season with the Tigers, 348-170 in his 17th overall season as a head coach.
Up Next: Wake Forest travels to Atlanta for its final regular season game against Georgia Tech on Monday, March 3 at 7:00 p.m. The game will be televised on the regional sports network.
Deacs Host Clemson In Regular-Season Home Finale
The Wake Forest women's basketball team makes its final appearance in Joel Coliseum in 2002-03, as it hosts the Clemson Tigers on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 7:00 p.m. (Internet broadcast).
WFU's three seniors -- Johanna Bjorklund, Heather Miller, and Tiffani Listenbee -- will be honored along with the senior managers in the pre-game ceremony.
The Deacs, at 12-13 overall (2-12 ACC) are hoping to make their final home appearance a good one with a second straight victory over the Tigers at the Joel. WFU defeated Clemson last season at home, snapping a nine-game Tiger win streak in the series. CU won the first meeting between the two teams, 61-45, down at Clemson in January. The Tigers enter Thursday's tilt with a 13-12 record and 5-9 mark in league play.
Wake Forest is in a must-win situation in its final two regular season games, as it currently sits in ninth place in the ACC standings, two games behind Maryland (4-11).
Last Outing: WFU Suffers Another ACC Heartbreaker at NC State
Wake Forest chipped away at a 13-point second half deficit to take a one-point lead with 1:16 remaining, but NC State's Alvine Mendeng hit a clutch shot to lift the Wolfpack to a 65-62 victory. It marked WFU's eighth conference game this season that has been decided by 10 points or less.
Although WFU shot 42 percent from the floor, the Wolfpack hit 52 percent of their shots. The Deacs won the rebouding battle, 35-27.
For the sixth straight game, Deacon senior Tiffani Listenbee led WFU in scoring with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting. She also had a game-high 12 rebounds, notching her second double-double of the season.
Tonia Brown seemed to regain some of her shooting touch with 14 points (including four three-pointers) to go along with four steals. Erin Ferrell also chipped in 14 while Cotelia Bond-Young posted 10, all in the second half.
Deacs Match Last Year's Win Total
WFU's win over North Carolina A&T on Feb. 19 gave the Deacons its 12th victory of the season, matching its total from a season ago. Previously, you have to go back to the 1996-97 camapaign to find 12 season victories.
The last time the Deacs put up 13 in the win column was 1995-96, when it went 13-14.
With two games remaining in the regular season, the 2002-03 Deacons are still in the hunt for a winning season; something that hasn't been accomplished at WFU since the 1990-91 campaign.
Listenbee Gives A Lift; Leads ACC in Field Goal Percentage
Wake Forest senior forward Tiffani Listenbee appears to be playing some of her best basketball during the final stretch of her collegiate career, making a strong case for All-ACC honors.
Listenbee has led Wake Forest in scoring in each of the last six games and has posted double-figures in eight of the last nine contests. She's also been the team's leading rebounder in five of the last seven outings, with double-figure rebounding games in four of the last 11 games.
Included in this stretch are two double-doubles -- with 20 points and 13 rebounds versus North Carolina and 18 points, 12 boards at NC State. The 20 points tied her then-career high, while the 13 boards were a personal best. She broke that scoring high with 21 points versus North Carolina A&T.
Listenbee has also improved her field goal shooting numbers, going 43-of-63 (68 percent) from the field over the last six games. She currently leads the ACC in shooting percentage (conference games only) at 56.3 percent. She is the only Deacon averaging double-figures in scoring in conference games (11.8 ppg), a mark that ranks 13th in the league.
Dishing the Assists, Crashing the Boards
Although her scoring numbers have been below her average in the second half of the ACC season, Cotelia Bond-Young has stepped up in the rebounding and assist categories. She pulled down rebounding team-highs of 10 at Clemson and six versus Georgia Tech. She had 10 boards at Florida State while notching her first double-double. Bond-Young has also been the team's assists leader in the last four games, averaging 6.0 assists with just 2.25 turnovers per game. She's the ACC's leading freshman in assists (3.72 apg) and leads WFU assist-to-turnover ratio (1.79).
Scouting Clemson
Clemson comes into Joel Coliseum with a 13-12 mark, 5-9 in ACC play. Like WFU, the Tigers defeated Virginia at home and picked up a road win at Maryand. Clemson also NC State and completed the sweep of Maryland in addition to defeating the Deacs in their first meetings. The Tigers, however, have dropped five of their last seven games.
Clemson is led by senior guard Chrissy Floyd, a three-time All-ACC selection and first-team pick a year ago. Floyd is a scoring threat who currently ranks second in the ACC with 17.3 points per game. She is the only Tiger averaging double-figures in scoring.
A similarity between the Tigers and the Demon Deacons is that both have freshmen who are making an impact this season. For Clemson, rookie center Amanda White leads the squad and is the ACC's second-leading freshman rebounder with 6.3 boards an outing. Forward Khaili Sanders is fifth on the team in scoring (6.2 ppg).
Clemson leads the conference in blocked shots, thanks to the freshman duo of Sanders (28) and White (27). The Tigers also rank second in the league in free throw shooting (.698) and third in three-point field goal percentage defense (.286).
The Series With Clemson
Wake Forest and Clemson have met 46 previous times on the hardwood, with the Tigers holding a 38-8 lead in the series ... Clemson won nine straight meetings and 19 of the previous 20 before Wake halted that streak with a 58-46 win in Winston-Salem in the teams' first meeting last season ... that win also marked head coach Charlene Curtis' 200th career victory and her first win over the Tigers at WFU ... the Deacs have not won at Clemson since a 59-58 victory in the 1990-91 campaign and have brought home a victory from Littlejohn Coliseum only four times ... scores tend to be relatively low when these two teams meet, as the victor has scored over 70 points only three times in the last 15 meetings ... the two teams first met in the 1977-78 season ... Clemson dominated the series in the early years, winning the first 11 meetings by an average margin of 30 points ... the Tigers and Deacs have only played regular season contests, never meeting in the ACC Tournament or on a neutral court.
Deacon-Tiger Connections
* Clemson junior Kanetra Queen hails from Fayetteville, N.C. Queen played in the 2000 East-West All-Star Girls Basketball Game in Greensboro, and one of her teammates on the East team was current WFU junior Tracy Alston. Another Demon Deacon, Eafton Hill, played on the West squad in that game.
* Wake Forest sophomore Jennifer Johnson and Clemson forward Khaili Sanders faced each other in the 2001 Tennessee-Georgia All-Star game in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Brown Nets 100th Three-Pointer
Although she's not quite on pace to match last year's school-record 62 three-pointers, junior guard Tonia Brown continues her assault on the WFU three-point shooting records.
She scored just one three-pointer against Maryland on Jan. 12, but that was all she needed to notch her 100th career trey. Already listed on WFU's career three-pointers chart, Brown is the sixth player in school history - and first since Alisha Mosley (1997-00) - to reach the century mark in that category.
Brown now ranks fifth all-time at WFU with 111 career three-point attempts and fourth with 364 career attempts.
After setting the school's single-season record with 62 three-pointers last season, Brown has tallied 29 treys thus far in the 2002-03 campaign. Freshman Cotelia Bond-Young leads the squad with 42, which ranks 10th on WFU's single season list.
Oh, So Close!
After cruising through the months of November and December with just one game decided by 10 points or less, the Demon Deacons have been through some battles in the second half of the 2002-03 campaign.
After defeating UNC Wilmington by six, 65-59, on Dec. 29, Wake Forest has gone 1-7 in games decided by 10 points or less. All eight of those games have come against ACC opponents.
Overall, eight of the Deacs' 14 ACC games so far this season have been decided by a close margin.
That stretch includes a pair of two-point losses to Florida State, a two-point loss and a four-point win against Maryland, a four-point loss to Georgia Tech, a 10-point loss at then No. 1-ranked Duke (which was a two-point game with less than a minute remaining), a 10-point loss at home to No. 6 North Carolina, and a three-point loss on the road at NC State.
Twenty Points Times Eight
Through 25 games this season, Wake Forest has tallied eight 20-point games -- three apiece by both Eafton Hill and Tiffani Listenbee, and one apiece by Tonia Brown and Cotelia Bond-Young.
The Deacs have doubled their 20-point game total from all of last year. In the 2001-02 season, Brown posted four 20-point games while Bianca Brown tallied one.
Coming Up Next
Wake Forest plays its final regular season game on Monday, March 3, as it travels to Atlanta to face the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, who are currently 17-9 overall, 6-8 in ACC play. The game will be televised on the ACC regional sports network.
