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Game Notes
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The No. 4 Nova Southeastern women's basketball team travels for their first Sunshine State Conference road game of the year this weekend, taking on the Eckerd Tritons in St. Petersburg, Fla. on Saturday at 2 p.m.
The Sharks (9-0, 1-0 SSC) completed the 2013 portion of the season on Dec. 16-17, defeating two opponents at the Shark Invitational. They topped Benedict 79-40 and No. 24 Shaw 103-85, running their record against out-of-conference foes to 8-0. With the exception of a home and away with Palm Beach Atlantic, the remainder of the NSU schedule (15 of 17) will be SSC contests.
Saturday will be the first SSC matchup of the year for Eckerd (6-3). The Tritons began the season by winning their first four games, but have lost two of their last three. Their last game was Dec. 21 at home, falling to Armstrong Atlantic State and Hanna Bognar, 67-54. Bognar notched a triple-double – 11 points, 13 rebounds and 10 blocked shots – in the win.
Eckerd's leading scorer is Liga Vente at 13.9 points per game, ninth in the league. Their top rebounder, third in the SSC, is Ivana Grbic (8.3), while point guard Kayla Bowlin's 4.6 assists is fourth. Amy Bucilla ranks second in 3-pointers made, at 2.3 per, and her 42.9 percentage behind the arc is seventh.
For the Sharks,
Jessica Russi (Sr., Lake Mary, Fla.) tied her own school record in the win over Shaw, distributing 15 assists as part of 23 over the two days. Her second-place average of 9.6 per game is just two-tenths behind the national leader, Sade Jackson of Adelphi. She also moved into second place all-time on the NSU career assist board with 340, passing Eliza Allen's 335.
In the wins over Benedict and Shaw,
Richelle Carach (Sr., Naples, Fla.) extended her double-digit scoring streak to all nine games this season, with a career-high 22 points in the first and 20 points in the latter.
Taylor Buie (So., Puyallup, Wash.) had 20 points against Benedict and 21 versus Shaw.
Carach leads everyone in the country in field goal percentage, at 70.7 percent. She actually went down a couple of percentage points despite shooting an extremely efficient 17-of-25 (68 percent) in the last two games. She is also first in the SSC and sixth in the NCAA in free throw percentage (94.1). Buie's combined 8-of-14 3-point shooting in the Shark Invite boosted her season percentage to 52.6, pushing her from 24th to third in the nation (and from fourth to second in the conference), and her 3.3 made 3's per game is first in the SSC and 10th in DII.
SHARK STATS
• Buie, Carach and
Danielle Robinson (Jr., Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) are all among the top seven in the SSC in scoring. Buie is third (17.2), Carach fifth (16.2) and Robinson seventh (15.0).
•
Jasmine Wilkins (Sr., Miami) is 17th in scoring (11.0) and third in field goal percentage (62.0).
• Like Russi, Robinson is moving up the Shark leaderboards. With five points, she will pass her teammate of a year ago, Meixandra Porter, for fourth place on the DII scoring list. She is only 45 points away from 1,000 for her career. Also, with three made 3-pointers, she'll pass Porter for second place on that list.
• Russi, Robinson and Wilkins ranks among the conference steal leaders in third, fourth and sixth.
• Robinson is just behind Buie in third at 47.2 percent in 3-point percentage, and is ninth in 3-pointers per game (1.9).
• After her 6-of-7 shooting from behind the arc against Shaw,
Amanda Burakoski (Sr., Brooklyn, N.Y.) moved into 10th in the league in percentage (41.3) and is sixth in 3-pointers made per game (2.1). That 85.7 percent showing is the best in a game for the program since 2002, with a minimum of six made.
• As a team, NSU leads all of DII in assists per game (22.3), and they are second in three more categories: assist/turnover ratio (1.39), field goal percentage (50.2) and 3-pointers made per game (11.3). Additionally, the Sharks are third in scoring offense (93.2) and 3-point percentage (42.3) and are sixth in scoring margin (+27.4).
• A win on Saturday would be the team's 10th straight to start the year, a new program record. It would also mark head coach LeAnn Freeland's 50th win at the school.
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