Women's Basketball 11/19/2013 11:27:00 AM

Game Notes: Truman Heads To Nashville For Pair Of Regional Games

2013-14 Truman Women's Basketball Game Notes:
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KIRKSVILLE, Mo. – Fresh off a 3-0 start to the 2013-14 season, the Truman Women's Basketball team will get their first taste of regional play when they travel to Nashville, Tenn. for the Pops Duncan Classic hosted by Trevecca Nazarene University. Truman will face Grand Valley (Mich.) on Friday followed by the host Trojans on Saturday.

Game Coverage
The Bulldogs will be on 104.7 FM KRES and CentralMoInfo.com on Friday and on 99.9 FM KIRK and CentralMoInfo.com on Saturday. Brad Boyer will handle the play-by-play duties with a pregame show beginning 15 minutes prior to tip.

Live stats and live video links, if available from the host site, will be available off the women's basketball schedule page on TrumanBulldogs.com

This Week's Schedule:
Truman will face Grand Valley (Mich.) State and Trevecca Nazarene for the first time ever at the Pops Duncan Classic in Nashville, Tenn. The Bulldogs will face the Lakers on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and the Trojans at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday.

With the Bulldogs switch to the Great Lakes Valley Conference, Truman also switched from the Central to Midwest region for selection into the NCAA tournament. The three conferences that comprise the Midwest region are the GLVC, Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletics Association (GLIAC) and Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC).

Grand Valley State is a member of the GLIAC and Trevecca Nazarene is a member of the GMAC. Ashland (Ohio) was the number one team in Division II last season as they won the national championships coming out of the Midwest region. Both the GLVC and GLIAC give automatic qualifiers (AQ) to the national tournament to their postseason conference tournament winners. The GMAC does not have an AQ yet so the other six spots for the regional tournament are at-large.

The Bulldogs return home for a pre-Thanksgiving game against the Hannibal-LaGrange Trojans at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 26. Truman is 3-0 against HLG with the last meeting coming in 2009.

About the Bulldogs (3-0; 0-0 GLVC)
For the third straight season, the Bulldogs are perfect through the first three games sporting a winning margin of nearly 40 points per game. Truman blistered the nets in a season opening 101-27 win over Stephens (Mo.) College then took both games at the Winstead-Reeves Classic over the weekend at Northwest Missouri State by defeating the host Bearcats 91-71 and Lincoln (Mo.) 83-60.

Senior guard Amy Briggs was named the tournament's most valuable player and was joined on the all-tournament team by junior guard Allie Norton. Briggs scored 16 points in the first half against the Bearcats and finished with a career-high 21 in the 20-point win over the Bearcats and followed up with 12-point performance against Lincoln. Briggs shot 54% from the field and 55% (5-of-9) from beyond the arc during the tournament.

Through the first three games, five Bulldogs are averaging in double scoring figures with sophomore Kasey Gassensmith leading the way at 14.3. Norton is second at 14.0 with Briggs (12.7), senior forward Bianca Szafarowicz (12.0) and sophomore guard Courtney Strait (11.5) following.

Truman averaged 91.7 points as a team last week while the defense allowed 52.7 and forced 66 (22.0/game) turnovers. The Bulldogs were also winning the rebounding battle by an average of 20 more boards per game and have dealt out nearly 19 assists per game.

Bombs Away
The Bulldogs led all three NCAA Divisions in three-point shooting last season. Truman set a season record with202 treys and shot 41.6% from the arc last year to lead Duke (40.5%), Penn State (39.2%) and Northwest-St. Paul (39.2%) in three-point shooting.

Truman's previous record in three-point shooting was 39% in 1989-90 and 199 triples during the 2007-08 season.

This season, Truman is shooting 44.4% from outside through the first three games going 28-of-63.

Allie Norton is sixth on the Truman career three-pointers made list with 137. She is eight makes away from fifth place held by Breanna Daniels. Norton is the career leader in three-point field goal percentage with a minimum of 50 made with a 42.5% rate. The next closest Bulldog is Nicci Hays, who made 40.7% of her three-pointers.

Season Highlights:

Senior Bianca Szfarowicz recorded the first double-double of the season in Truman's 101-27 victory over Stephens (Mo.) on November 11. Szafarowicz had a career-high 18 points to go along with 10 rebounds. She also tied for the sixth best steal performance against the Stars with seven and added a career high four assists.
Sophomore Kasey Gassensmith had the fourth best single-game shooting percentage against Stephens College on November 11. Gassensmith was 9-of-11 (81.8%) from the field for a career-high 22 points against the Stars. It was the highest field goal percentage with a minimum of eight made since Nicole Gloor went 9-of-11 against Southwest Baptist in 2010.
The 74-point win over Stephens was the most by the team since an 82-point win (102-20) over Central Christian (Mo.) in 2007. The team had the second most field goal attempts all-time with 88, tied eighth most three-pointers made with 12, third most rebounds in a game with 62, eighth most assists with 26 and seventh most steals with 17.
Truman's 91-71 win over Northwest Missouri on November 16 broke a 10-year, 10-game losing streak in Bearcat Arena. The Bulldogs last win in Maryville was a 74-72 victory on February 5, 2003 and it was the largest margin of victory over Northwest on their home court since an 89-66 win on January 16, 1999.
The Bulldogs won their 24th consecutive game over Lincoln (Mo.) when they defeated the Blue Tigers 83-60 on November 17. Truman owns a 47-14 all-time series lead over Lincoln and have not lost to the Blue Tigers since 1998.

New Faces:
Head Coach Amy Eagan played for the Bulldogs from 1995-99 and is fourth all-time in scoring (1527 points, seventh in rebounds (643) and first in assists (529). She holds the Truman single-game scoring record with 46 against Southern Indiana in 1998. As a coach, Eagan spent the last three years at Ashford (Iowa) and two years at St. Ambrose (Iowa). She has a collegiate coaching record of 76-80 with two 20-win seasons.

Eagan is joined on the bench by Adam Tandez and Sarah Eagan. Tandez served as Eagan's assistant coach at Ashford the past two years and is a graduate of Marquette (Wisc.) University. Sarah is Amy's younger sister as in the graduate assistant coach this season.

On the court, five new players have been added to the roster in Tawny Tucci, Ashley Ploudre, Megan Walsh, Linnea Schmelzer and Britney Boland. Tucci is a transfer from Lincoln Memorial (Tenn.) and is a sophomore while the other four are true freshman. Also returning this season after missing all of last with injuries are sophomores Sarah Gaeddert and Allison Wiese.

GLVC Preseason Poll:
The Bulldogs join the Great Lakes Valley Conference this season after being a member of the MIAA since 1982. Truman was picked fourth in the West Division of the GLVC Preseason Coaches' Poll with 73 points and one first-place vote.

Quincy (Ill.) garnered 11 first-place votes and 112 overall to sit atop the division in the poll followed by Maryville (Mo.) and Missouri S&T. Lewis (Ill.) grabbed 11 first-place votes to lead the East Division followed by the University of Indianapolis.

Lewis came out of the east to win the GLVC postseason tournament last year over #2 seed Maryville 76-61. Wisconsin-Parkside (20-10 overall) and Indianapolis (19-10) joined those two teams as GLVC representatives in the NCAA Division II National Tournament.

The Bulldogs open GLVC play on December 7 at Quincy (Ill.) and will play 18 league games. They will play home-and-home games with Quincy, Missouri-St. Louis and Maryville.

Around the GLVC:
Eight of the 16 teams in the GLVC are perfect through the first two weeks of play with three teams out of the east division (Lewis, Southern Indiana and McKendree) and five out of the west (Drury, Rockhurst, Truman, Missouri-St. Louis and Quincy).

Scouting the Opponents:
Grand Valley State will be playing their first game of the new season when they face the Bulldogs on Friday night. The Lakers were 19-8 a season ago with a loss in the first round of the GLIAC conference tournament. Dani Crandall is the top returner for the Lakers as she averaged eight points, four rebounds and fewer than two assists.

The Lakers played a pair of exhibition games losing to Michigan State 91-47 and defeating Madonn 79-52. Crandall had 17 points and nine rebounds in the victory.

Janel Burgess enters her seventh season at Grand Valley State and has an overall record of 103-64.
Trevecca Nazarene will be wrapping up a busy of action as the game with Truman will be their fourth game in six days. The Trojans started 1-0 before a 98-77 loss to Austin Peay on Monday and have games against Alabama-Huntsville on Wednesday, Missouri-St. Louis on Friday before the game with the Bulldogs.

The Trojans were 20-9 last season as they are completing the transition from the NAIA to NCAA Division II. Their top returning players are Christina Curtner (9.7 ppg/3.1 apg) and Kaci Britt Bell (5.6 rpg). They were the champions in the first season of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference but were not eligible for NCAA tournament play due to the transition.

Gary Van Atta is in his ninth season as coach of the Trojans and has led the team to two NAIA Elite Eight tournaments and one national runner-up finish.

Hannibal-LaGrange will come to Kirksville on Tuesday for an exhibition game on the Trojans schedule but a regular season game for the Bulldogs. HLG enters the week at 0-5 with two games, both on the road at Culver-Stockton (Mo.) and at Grand View (Iowa).

Morgan Winkler leads the Trojans in scoring at 12.6 per game and Ashleigh Hurd-Spencer is averaging 5.6 rebounds and 5.0 assists in the early going. Kelly Quigle is in her second season as coach of the Trojans.

The Bulldogs lead the all-time series with Hannibal-LaGrange 3-0 with the last meeting being a 58-54 Truman in in 2009. The other two games were played during the 1998 and 1999 seasons, both in Hannibal.

Up Next:
The Bulldogs return to action eight days after the Hannibal-LaGrange contest when they host Grand View (Iowa) in Pershing Arena at 7:00 p.m. Then will open up Great Lakes Valley Conference play on Saturday, December 7 against rival Quincy (Ill.) University. The Lady Hawks were picked to win the west division this season.

Truman has won the last two games against the Lady Hawks, each by 10 points.

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