Racers Battle Lady Govs in OVC First Round

Wednesday, March 2

Nashville, Tenn.

Noon

Murray State

Austin Peay

Red-shirt freshman Jessica Winfrey led the Racers this season against the Lady Govs with 17.5 points and 9.5 rebounds.

Photo by: Tab Brockman

2/28/2011 3:45:10 PM | Women's Basketball

Game 30
No. 8 Murray State (9-20, 5-13 OVC) vs. No. 5 Austin Peay (13-17, 12-6 OVC)
Location: Nashville, Tenn.
Arena: Municipal Auditorium
Time: Noon

The Game
The Murray State women's basketball team is heading to the 2011 Ohio Valley Conference Championship, March 2-5 at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn. The Racers (9-20, 5-13 OVC) head to the tournament as the No. 8 seed and will face No. 5 Austin Peay in the first round, Wednesday, March 2 at noon.

Game Notes
Listen
Live Stats
Live Video

Scouting Austin Peay
The Lady Govs head into Wednesday's game with a 13-17 overall record and finished the OVC season with a 12-6 mark after winning their last game against Southeast Missouri.

APSU has five main shooters, with over 200 shot attempts, and two main scorers this season. The two key scorers are Whitney Hanley and Jasmine Rayner. Hanley is averaging 12.4 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, while shooting at a .341 overall mark and a .303 mark from beyond the arc. Rayner contributes 10.1 points and a team-high 7.7 boards per game. She is also the teams strongest shooter from the field, going 111-of-250 (.444).

The Lady Govs have similar numbers on the season box score to what the Racers have tallied this year. They are averaging 4.1 less points per game than the opposition, but do have a +1.4 mark in rebounding. The main difference between APSU and MSU is in shooting percentages allowed by opponents. While the Racers allow their opposition to shoot at a .370 mark from the field and a .297 mark from three-point range, the Lady Govs allow a .402 pace overall and a .316 clip from beyond the arc.

APSU seems to peak in the second half this season, with better offense and defense. The Lady Govs allow 103 more points to be scored against them in the first and just 20 more in the second and have garnered 156 more of their own in the second to just 73 more than the opposition in the first half.

Against the Lady Govs
APSU earned victories in both of the regular season games with MSU this season. The Lady Govs averaged 13 more points and 3.5 more rebounds than the Racers in those two meetings. APSU had an advantage in overall shooting percentage (.289 to .375), but the Racers had a slit lead in the three-point shooting (.273 to .265).

Red-shirt freshman Jessica Winfrey was the leader for MSU in the yearly series, with 13.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. She made 11-of-24 shots for a 45.8 shooting percentage. Sophomore Mariah Robinson added 11 points and five rebounds per outing and tallied six assists.

The Lady Govs had three players with double-digit point averages in the series. Whitney Hanley contributed 17.5 points and 9.5 boards per game, while shooting .414 and .357 (3). Nicole Olszewski was second on the team with 11.5 points and six rebounds per game, while Meghan Bussabarger added 10 points and 4.5 rebounds per game.

The Series
Despite losing the last five games versus the Lady Govs, the Racers own a 42-39 advantage in the all-time series. MSU and APSU have meet on three previous occasions in the OVC tournament, with the Lady Govs taking all three meetings. The most recent was March 6, 2009 when the Racers were defeated 90-84. MSU was the No. 1 seed that season and APSU was the No. 5 seed.

In The OVC Tournament
The 2011 OVC Championship is going back to Municipal Auditorium for the first time since the 2007-08 campaign, when MSU claimed the championship and a trip to the NCAA Tournament. This season the Racers head to Nashville as the No. 8 seed. The top two teams (No. 1 Tennessee Tech, No. 2 UT Martin) both earn byes through the first round and the quarterfinals, while the next two teams (No. 3 Morehead State, No. 4 Eastern Illinois) earned a by through the first round. No. 6 Jacksonville State will face No. 7 Tennessee State in the other first round game at 2 p.m.

MSU is making its 18th appearance in the OVC Championship and has an 11-17 overall record in the tournament. The Racers are 5-9 when playing in the first round.

Winfrey Making Her Mark
Red-shirt freshman Jessica Winfrey has now tallied double-doubles against the same team twice this season, against both UTM and EIU. She has a chance to add a third team to the list Thursday when the Racers face the Eagles. Winfrey is also closing in on the top-10 lists for double-doubles in a season (No. 9 -11(2)) and career double-doubles (No. 10 -14).

Defensive Special
The Racers had a great defensive performance against Southeast Missouri (Feb. 17) at the Show Me Center. MSU held the Redhawks to just 34 points for the game, the lowest point total for an opponent in a game since Nov. 22, 1976 when the Racers defeated Vanderbilt, 59-32, on the road. MSU also held SEMO to just 22.8 percent shooting, including a 1-21 mark (.048) from beyond the arc.

Robinson Raining Three's
Sophomore Mariah Robinson had the game of her career Jan. 13 in Jacksonville, Ala. The Beaver Dam, Ky., native recorded the second-most points in school history (44) and tallied a school-record nine three pointers. The previous record was set by Megan Fuqua and her current coach Ashley B. Hayes (8). Robinson also added a career-best nine free throws and 13 field goals. She was not just a scoring threat for MSU in the game, as she added eight rebounds and three assists.

Academic Honors Again
Junior Rachael Isom was named to the Capital One Academic All-District IV second team as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). The honor marks the second-straight season that Isom has been named to the second team. The award also makes it the fourth-straight season that a Racer player has been named to the All-District IV team. Isom carries a 4.00 grade point average in English literature. The Cleveland, Tenn., native leads the team with 51 assists this season while also recording 7.0 points and 2.4 rebounds per game.

To be consider for the Academic All-District teams, a student-athlete must be at least a sophomore in eligibility and own a minimum 3.30 grade-point average.

Double Double-Double Nights
For the second time this season two members of the team garnered double-doubles on the same night. Sophomore Mariah Robinson earned her second of the season, with 25 points and a career-best 14 rebounds against UT Martin. Red-shirt freshman Jessica Winfrey added her sixth of the year, with 11 points and 13 rebounds. This marked the first time since the 2000-01 campaign that MSU had two players with double-doubles in the same game twice in a season.

In the win over Eastern Illinois (Jan. 20), the Racers had two players earn double-doubles for the first time since Dec. 18, 2008 when Ashley N. Hayes (14 pts., 12 reb.) and Amber Guffey (20 pts., 11 reb.) each had one. Robinson earned her first career double-double, with 29 points and 11 rebounds, while Winfrey earned her fourth of the season (11 pts., 10 reb.).

No Senior Leadership
After fighting through an injury plagued year in 2009-10 the Murray State women's basketball team will be in a select group of NCAA DI teams this season that will allow them to use the drive and determination they discovered last year, as the roster has no seniors listed. The Racers are one of seven programs in the country with no seniors on the 2010-11 roster.

The youthful roster has just nine years of NCAA collegiate experience on it, which ranks third among OVC teams for the least amount of NCAA collegiate experience. The only teams with fewer years of experience than the Racers are UT Martin (3) and Eastern Illinois (8).

Up Next
A win Wednesday would move the Racers into the quarterfinal round against No. 4 Eastern Illinois. The game would tip-off at noon, Thursday, March 3 at Municipal Auditorium.