Eastern Michigan Athletics
Saturday, February 18
DeKalb, Ill.
3 p.m.
Eastern Michigan University
at
Northern Illinois
Photo by: Steve King/KingStudios
Eagles Put Six-Game Winning Streak on the Line Saturday
2/17/2012 10:52:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Saturday, Feb. 18, 2012 » 3 p.m. CST » Convocation Center (9,100) » DeKalb, Ill.
Complete Release.
Live Stats.
EAGLES PUT SIX-GAME WINNING STREAK ON THE LINE SATURDAY: The Eastern Michigan University women's basketball team completes its final two-game road trip of the regular season Saturday, Feb. 18, with a Mid-American Conference West Division tilt against Northern Illinois University. Game time is scheduled for 3 p.m. CST inside the NIU Convocation Center in DeKalb, Ill. The game is part of the national “Play 4Kay” initiative with fans being encouraged to wear pink in support of breast cancer research.
The Eagles enter the game with a mark of 18-7 (10-2 MAC), tied with the University of Toledo atop the MAC West Division. With a victory against NIU, EMU would lock up a top-four finish in the overall league standings and secure a first-round bye in the MAC Tournament. Meanwhile, the Huskies are 12-12 (6-6 MAC) after a 58-44 victory over Ball State University in DeKalb, Ill., Feb. 16.
STRIVING FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT: The Eagles have strung together six consecutive victories for the first time since the 2010-11 campaign. Last year the Green and White rolled off a six-game winning streak from Dec. 11 through Jan. 8. In total, the program has 15 winning streaks of five-or-more contests.
During the current steak, the Eagles are winning games by an average of more than 24 points (78.2 to 53.7) and out-rebounding opponents by 14 rebounds per game (46.8 to 32.3). Hot-shooting has been another key as Eastern is shooting 45.0 percent from the floor while the defense is holding the opposition to just 33.4 percent.
STILL DEADLOCKED IN THE WEST: Eastern Michigan and Toledo have been tied for the Mid-American Conference West Division lead since Jan. 22, a streak of 27 consecutive days.
A SPOTLIGHT ON THE HUSKIES: The Feb. 18 contest marks the 37th meeting between the Northern Illinois Huskies and Eastern Michigan Eagles, who first played during the 1981-82 season. Eastern leads the overall series, 27-9, and has won 22 of the last 25 games over the Cardinal and Black. Head Coach AnnMarie Gilbert has tallied an 8-1 mark against NIU since taking over the program in 2007-08.
Earlier this season at the EMU Convocation Center, the Eagles raced out to a 28-12 halftime lead and kept the pressure on the rest of the way to record the 12-point victory. Senior forward Paige Redditt scored a game-high 17 points with eight rebounds and two blocked shots. Senior guard Tavelyn James scored 16, sophomore Natachia Watkins added 13 points and nine rebounds and sophomore Olivia Fouty chipped in 11 points with eight boards.
Northern Illinois was led by Satavia Taylor with 14 and Courtney Shelton with 12.
LAND OF LINCOLN: The Eagles' have been dominant versus schools from the state of Illinois, posting an 11-game winning streak against the Land of Lincoln dating back to the 2008-09 campaign. Eastern Michigan's last loss to a team that hailed from the state was a 69-62 overtime setback to Northern Illinois, Jan. 17, 2008.
FAMILIAR FACE: The Eagles' meeting with the Huskies Saturday will bring a familiar face to the opposing sideline. Currently a senior forward for NIU, Kim Davis played the 2008-09 season at EMU as a walk-on, where she started 10 games and played in 24. A resident of Evanston, Ill., Davis left EMU to attend NIU, an in-state institution with lower tuition. She did not play basketball in 2009-10. NIU Head Coach Kathi Bennett discovered Davis and convinced her to join the Huskies last season.
DOUBLE DIGITS WINS IN MAC PLAY: The 2011-12 campaign marks the eighth time in the last nine years that EMU has posted at least 10 victories in Mid-American Conference play. Prior to the 2001-02 season, EMU had never won more than nine games in league action.
NEW MAC TOURNAMENT FORMAT IN 2012: Under the new MAC Tournament format, the top four seeds will receive multiple byes in 2012. The third and fourth seeds will earn berths in the quarterfinals, with seeds one and two being placed directly into the semifinal round. To put it another way, a team seeded first or second will need to win only two MAC Tournament games to capture the title, while the third or fourth seed would need three wins. Any team seeded fifth through 12th will need to reel off five consecutive wins to capture the tourney crown. The seeding is based on conference winning percentage, regardless of division. For a projected tournament bracket, turn to page 15 of these notes.
ABOUT PLAY4KAY: The Women's Basketball Coaches Association rebranded Pink Zone and Think Pink games as Play 4Kay, beginning in Feb. 2012, in honor of former North Carolina State University Head Coach Kay Yow, who lost her battle with breast cancer in Jan. 2009. The mission of the annual pink games, which were brought to life in 2007, is a nation of coaches raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. The Kay Yow Cancer Fund is the official charity of the initiative. The late Kay Yow is remembered for the hundreds and thousands of lives she touched through basketball and through her tireless efforts to fight cancer. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, and passed away Jan. 24, 2009, after facing her third bout with the disease. Having coached for 38 seasons, Yow was one only six Division I head women's basketball mentors to achieve 700 career victories.
JAMES IN SOME RAREFIED COMPANY: With a 30-point performance at Western Michigan, Feb. 15, senior Tavelyn James became the most prolific senior scorer in program history. The MAC record for most points by a senior is Western Michigan's Carrie Moore with 813 points in 2006-07.
James also holds the EMU freshman (426), sophomore (641) and junior (642) single-season scoring marks.
NCAA RANKINGS: The latest NCAA Statistical Rankings came out Feb. 13 and the Eagles are sixth in the nation (out of 336 eligible teams) in steals per game at 13.6. They are 14th in rebounding margin (+9.4), 15th in turnover margin at +5.75 and 29th in scoring margin (+12.2). Individually, Tavelyn James is second in the nation in scoring with an average of 24.3 points per game and 42nd in free throw percentage per game at 85.0. Desyree Thomas is 10th in the nation with an average of 3.5 steals per game, while Paige Redditt is 92nd in the nation in rebounds with an average of 8.5 per game.
JAMES MOVING UP THE MAC LIST: Senior Tavelyn James, the leading scorer in EMU history, is also moving up the Mid-American Conference list. Just the 11th student-athlete in MAC history to surpass the 2,000-point mark in a career, James needs 127 points to pass Ohio's Caroline Mast (1982-86) for second on the MAC list. For the complete list of her accomplishments, turn to page 10 of these notes.
JAMES SCORING IN BUNCHES: With her 21-point second half effort against Kent State, Feb. 11, senior Tavelyn James has posted six halves with 20-or-more points this season.
REDDITT PASSES 900 POINTS: Senior forward Paige Redditt reached a milestone by recording her 900th career point in the team's 83-47 victory over Kent State University, Feb. 11. Redditt totaled 15 points and 10 rebounds, becoming the 21st member to join the 900-point club for the EMU women's basketball program.
Redditt joins Stephanie Smiley (1998-02) as the only players in school-history to post more than 900 points, 700 rebounds and 100 blocks in a career. Redditt has accumulated 921 points, 734 rebounds and 118 blocks, while Smiley finished her career with 1,401 points, 784 caroms and 103 rejections.
JAMES EQUALS THE MAC RECORD WITH 10 TRIPLES AGAINST KENT STATE: Senior guard Tavelyn James went on a record-breaking three-point streak to lead the Eagles to an 83-47 win over Kent State, Feb. 11. The 5-foot-7 James not only broke the school record for three-point field goals in a game with 10 triples on the afternoon, but also set a single-game record for MAC-only games and tied the MAC single-game record against all opponents. James was 10-of-20 from beyond the arc and finished the game with 40 points, the fourth time in her career she has scored 40. James already holds the single-game best with 42 points.
James' 10 threes tied Ohio's Marlene Stollings (Dec. 30, 1997 vs. Robert Morris) for the MAC record against all opponents and broke the record of nine by Miami's Jamie Stewart (Jan. 22, 2000 vs. BGSU) and CMU's Judi Culbertson (Feb. 25, 2000 vs. Ball State) for the standard in MAC-only games. Additionally, the 10 threes topped the EMU mark of eight held by James (Nov. 20, 2009 at Siena), Sydney Huntley (Feb. 2, 2010 at CMU) and Marion Crandall (Feb. 21, 2004 vs. Ball State).
For her efforts, James was named the MAC West Division Player of the Week for the seventh time in her career.
TWO THREE-POINTERS SHY OF A NATIONAL RECORD: Tavelyn James' record-setting performance of 10 three-point field goals made against Kent State, Feb. 11, was just two makes shy of the NCAA Division I record. Louisiana State University's Cornelia Gayden sank 12 triples against Jackson State University, Feb. 9, 1995, while Purdue's Brittany Rayburn nailed 12 against the University of Minnesota, Jan. 12, 2012.
Since 1988, only 34 players in Division I women's basketball have connected on 10-or-more three-pointers in a single game.
SUPER SOPHOMORES: The sophomore trio of Olivia Fouty, Desyree Thomas and Natachia Watkins have been a large part of the team's continued success in 2011-12. The trifecta has combined for 39.1 percent of EMU's points (691), 42.5 percent of its rebounds (449) and 57.3 percent of the assists (201).
This is a dramatic change from their freshman campaign, when the three players combined for a season total of 170 points, 159 rebounds and 41 assists.
PIPING HOT TURNOVERS: After forcing 769 turnovers (20.8 per game) last season, Eastern Michigan is at it again this year, causing 580 turnovers (23.2 per game) in its 25 outings. The majority of those turnovers have come via EMU steals, with the Eagles registering 329 thefts (13.2 per game) after ranking first in the Mid-American Conference in that category last season.
ROCKETS ON THE HORIZON: The Feb. 21 contest marks the 67th meeting between Toledo and Eastern Michigan, who first met during the 1977-1978 season. The Rockets lead the overall series, 41-25, but EMU got the better of Toledo with a 70-66 victory in the team's first meeting this season at Savage Arena, Jan. 11. The loss snapped Toledo's 17-game conference winning streak inside Savage Arena, as UT's previous last home conference loss was a 75-69 setback to Ball State, March 7, 2009.
The Green and White were led by senior guard Tavelyn James with a game-high 30 points on 10-of-21 shooting in 39 minutes of work. Natachia Watkins followed with 13 points and Paige Redditt chipped in 12. Junior Taylor Bird turned in her best game as an Eagle as well with career-high eight points on 3-of-5 shooting.
Yolanda Richardson and Andola Dortch each had 11 points to pace Toledo. Brianna Jones was the only other Rocket to reach double figures with 10 points off the bench.
Live Stats.
EAGLES PUT SIX-GAME WINNING STREAK ON THE LINE SATURDAY: The Eastern Michigan University women's basketball team completes its final two-game road trip of the regular season Saturday, Feb. 18, with a Mid-American Conference West Division tilt against Northern Illinois University. Game time is scheduled for 3 p.m. CST inside the NIU Convocation Center in DeKalb, Ill. The game is part of the national “Play 4Kay” initiative with fans being encouraged to wear pink in support of breast cancer research.
The Eagles enter the game with a mark of 18-7 (10-2 MAC), tied with the University of Toledo atop the MAC West Division. With a victory against NIU, EMU would lock up a top-four finish in the overall league standings and secure a first-round bye in the MAC Tournament. Meanwhile, the Huskies are 12-12 (6-6 MAC) after a 58-44 victory over Ball State University in DeKalb, Ill., Feb. 16.
STRIVING FOR SEVEN STRAIGHT: The Eagles have strung together six consecutive victories for the first time since the 2010-11 campaign. Last year the Green and White rolled off a six-game winning streak from Dec. 11 through Jan. 8. In total, the program has 15 winning streaks of five-or-more contests.
During the current steak, the Eagles are winning games by an average of more than 24 points (78.2 to 53.7) and out-rebounding opponents by 14 rebounds per game (46.8 to 32.3). Hot-shooting has been another key as Eastern is shooting 45.0 percent from the floor while the defense is holding the opposition to just 33.4 percent.
STILL DEADLOCKED IN THE WEST: Eastern Michigan and Toledo have been tied for the Mid-American Conference West Division lead since Jan. 22, a streak of 27 consecutive days.
A SPOTLIGHT ON THE HUSKIES: The Feb. 18 contest marks the 37th meeting between the Northern Illinois Huskies and Eastern Michigan Eagles, who first played during the 1981-82 season. Eastern leads the overall series, 27-9, and has won 22 of the last 25 games over the Cardinal and Black. Head Coach AnnMarie Gilbert has tallied an 8-1 mark against NIU since taking over the program in 2007-08.
Earlier this season at the EMU Convocation Center, the Eagles raced out to a 28-12 halftime lead and kept the pressure on the rest of the way to record the 12-point victory. Senior forward Paige Redditt scored a game-high 17 points with eight rebounds and two blocked shots. Senior guard Tavelyn James scored 16, sophomore Natachia Watkins added 13 points and nine rebounds and sophomore Olivia Fouty chipped in 11 points with eight boards.
Northern Illinois was led by Satavia Taylor with 14 and Courtney Shelton with 12.
LAND OF LINCOLN: The Eagles' have been dominant versus schools from the state of Illinois, posting an 11-game winning streak against the Land of Lincoln dating back to the 2008-09 campaign. Eastern Michigan's last loss to a team that hailed from the state was a 69-62 overtime setback to Northern Illinois, Jan. 17, 2008.
FAMILIAR FACE: The Eagles' meeting with the Huskies Saturday will bring a familiar face to the opposing sideline. Currently a senior forward for NIU, Kim Davis played the 2008-09 season at EMU as a walk-on, where she started 10 games and played in 24. A resident of Evanston, Ill., Davis left EMU to attend NIU, an in-state institution with lower tuition. She did not play basketball in 2009-10. NIU Head Coach Kathi Bennett discovered Davis and convinced her to join the Huskies last season.
DOUBLE DIGITS WINS IN MAC PLAY: The 2011-12 campaign marks the eighth time in the last nine years that EMU has posted at least 10 victories in Mid-American Conference play. Prior to the 2001-02 season, EMU had never won more than nine games in league action.
NEW MAC TOURNAMENT FORMAT IN 2012: Under the new MAC Tournament format, the top four seeds will receive multiple byes in 2012. The third and fourth seeds will earn berths in the quarterfinals, with seeds one and two being placed directly into the semifinal round. To put it another way, a team seeded first or second will need to win only two MAC Tournament games to capture the title, while the third or fourth seed would need three wins. Any team seeded fifth through 12th will need to reel off five consecutive wins to capture the tourney crown. The seeding is based on conference winning percentage, regardless of division. For a projected tournament bracket, turn to page 15 of these notes.
ABOUT PLAY4KAY: The Women's Basketball Coaches Association rebranded Pink Zone and Think Pink games as Play 4Kay, beginning in Feb. 2012, in honor of former North Carolina State University Head Coach Kay Yow, who lost her battle with breast cancer in Jan. 2009. The mission of the annual pink games, which were brought to life in 2007, is a nation of coaches raising breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. The Kay Yow Cancer Fund is the official charity of the initiative. The late Kay Yow is remembered for the hundreds and thousands of lives she touched through basketball and through her tireless efforts to fight cancer. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, and passed away Jan. 24, 2009, after facing her third bout with the disease. Having coached for 38 seasons, Yow was one only six Division I head women's basketball mentors to achieve 700 career victories.
JAMES IN SOME RAREFIED COMPANY: With a 30-point performance at Western Michigan, Feb. 15, senior Tavelyn James became the most prolific senior scorer in program history. The MAC record for most points by a senior is Western Michigan's Carrie Moore with 813 points in 2006-07.
James also holds the EMU freshman (426), sophomore (641) and junior (642) single-season scoring marks.
NCAA RANKINGS: The latest NCAA Statistical Rankings came out Feb. 13 and the Eagles are sixth in the nation (out of 336 eligible teams) in steals per game at 13.6. They are 14th in rebounding margin (+9.4), 15th in turnover margin at +5.75 and 29th in scoring margin (+12.2). Individually, Tavelyn James is second in the nation in scoring with an average of 24.3 points per game and 42nd in free throw percentage per game at 85.0. Desyree Thomas is 10th in the nation with an average of 3.5 steals per game, while Paige Redditt is 92nd in the nation in rebounds with an average of 8.5 per game.
JAMES MOVING UP THE MAC LIST: Senior Tavelyn James, the leading scorer in EMU history, is also moving up the Mid-American Conference list. Just the 11th student-athlete in MAC history to surpass the 2,000-point mark in a career, James needs 127 points to pass Ohio's Caroline Mast (1982-86) for second on the MAC list. For the complete list of her accomplishments, turn to page 10 of these notes.
JAMES SCORING IN BUNCHES: With her 21-point second half effort against Kent State, Feb. 11, senior Tavelyn James has posted six halves with 20-or-more points this season.
REDDITT PASSES 900 POINTS: Senior forward Paige Redditt reached a milestone by recording her 900th career point in the team's 83-47 victory over Kent State University, Feb. 11. Redditt totaled 15 points and 10 rebounds, becoming the 21st member to join the 900-point club for the EMU women's basketball program.
Redditt joins Stephanie Smiley (1998-02) as the only players in school-history to post more than 900 points, 700 rebounds and 100 blocks in a career. Redditt has accumulated 921 points, 734 rebounds and 118 blocks, while Smiley finished her career with 1,401 points, 784 caroms and 103 rejections.
JAMES EQUALS THE MAC RECORD WITH 10 TRIPLES AGAINST KENT STATE: Senior guard Tavelyn James went on a record-breaking three-point streak to lead the Eagles to an 83-47 win over Kent State, Feb. 11. The 5-foot-7 James not only broke the school record for three-point field goals in a game with 10 triples on the afternoon, but also set a single-game record for MAC-only games and tied the MAC single-game record against all opponents. James was 10-of-20 from beyond the arc and finished the game with 40 points, the fourth time in her career she has scored 40. James already holds the single-game best with 42 points.
James' 10 threes tied Ohio's Marlene Stollings (Dec. 30, 1997 vs. Robert Morris) for the MAC record against all opponents and broke the record of nine by Miami's Jamie Stewart (Jan. 22, 2000 vs. BGSU) and CMU's Judi Culbertson (Feb. 25, 2000 vs. Ball State) for the standard in MAC-only games. Additionally, the 10 threes topped the EMU mark of eight held by James (Nov. 20, 2009 at Siena), Sydney Huntley (Feb. 2, 2010 at CMU) and Marion Crandall (Feb. 21, 2004 vs. Ball State).
For her efforts, James was named the MAC West Division Player of the Week for the seventh time in her career.
TWO THREE-POINTERS SHY OF A NATIONAL RECORD: Tavelyn James' record-setting performance of 10 three-point field goals made against Kent State, Feb. 11, was just two makes shy of the NCAA Division I record. Louisiana State University's Cornelia Gayden sank 12 triples against Jackson State University, Feb. 9, 1995, while Purdue's Brittany Rayburn nailed 12 against the University of Minnesota, Jan. 12, 2012.
Since 1988, only 34 players in Division I women's basketball have connected on 10-or-more three-pointers in a single game.
SUPER SOPHOMORES: The sophomore trio of Olivia Fouty, Desyree Thomas and Natachia Watkins have been a large part of the team's continued success in 2011-12. The trifecta has combined for 39.1 percent of EMU's points (691), 42.5 percent of its rebounds (449) and 57.3 percent of the assists (201).
This is a dramatic change from their freshman campaign, when the three players combined for a season total of 170 points, 159 rebounds and 41 assists.
PIPING HOT TURNOVERS: After forcing 769 turnovers (20.8 per game) last season, Eastern Michigan is at it again this year, causing 580 turnovers (23.2 per game) in its 25 outings. The majority of those turnovers have come via EMU steals, with the Eagles registering 329 thefts (13.2 per game) after ranking first in the Mid-American Conference in that category last season.
ROCKETS ON THE HORIZON: The Feb. 21 contest marks the 67th meeting between Toledo and Eastern Michigan, who first met during the 1977-1978 season. The Rockets lead the overall series, 41-25, but EMU got the better of Toledo with a 70-66 victory in the team's first meeting this season at Savage Arena, Jan. 11. The loss snapped Toledo's 17-game conference winning streak inside Savage Arena, as UT's previous last home conference loss was a 75-69 setback to Ball State, March 7, 2009.
The Green and White were led by senior guard Tavelyn James with a game-high 30 points on 10-of-21 shooting in 39 minutes of work. Natachia Watkins followed with 13 points and Paige Redditt chipped in 12. Junior Taylor Bird turned in her best game as an Eagle as well with career-high eight points on 3-of-5 shooting.
Yolanda Richardson and Andola Dortch each had 11 points to pace Toledo. Brianna Jones was the only other Rocket to reach double figures with 10 points off the bench.
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