University of Memphis Athletics
Nov 13, 2014 | Women's Basketball
MEMPHIS - - The University of Memphis women's basketball team opens its regular season Friday, at 4 p.m., when Missouri State comes to town for both teams first non-conference game of the season.
Tickets can be purchased online HERE. The game is a front end of a women's sports day doubleheader with the University of Memphis volleyball team, who hosts Houston 60 minutes after the facility is swapped from basketball to volleyball mode on Friday night (approximately 7:00 p.m.).
Season Opener
Memphis is 23-19 all-time in their regular season openers. The Tigers won last year's opener against East Tennessee State, 77-74, in overtime.Â
The overtime win improved Memphis to 4-2 in season openers under Melissa McFerrin.
Another 4:00 Friday Opener
Similar to last year, Memphis will open its regular season with a 4 p.m. Friday home game. The Tigers stretched that game time out last year, needing overtime to get past East Tennessee State. That was one of five overtime games (counting two double overtime games) that Memphis played last season.
Mooriah Rowser had 15 points in the opener last year and Asianna Fuqua-Bey just missed a double-double with 11 points and eight rebounds.
Series History
This is just the fifth meeting between Memphis and Missouri State. The series is tied 2-2, but Missouri State won the last meeting, a 82-65 win over Memphis in the second round of the postseason WNIT back in 2012.
Missouri State senior NiJay Gaines is the lone player left on either roster that played in that last meeting, finishing with two points in four minutes of play.
Memphis has won both meetings with Missouri State played at home. The last home win for Mmephis in the series was back in 1988 though, a 77-49 victory.
Hey, we know you!
Memphis fans will see a familiar face on the visiting team bench on Friday. Missouri State assistant coach Jennifer Sullivan is a former Memphis player (2001-2005) and assistant coach (2007-08) with the Tigers.
As a player, Sullivan was a three-year starter who finished her career with 800 career points.
Sullivan began her coaching career here in Memphis at Division III Rhodes College. After one season at Rhodes, she was added to Blair Savage-Lansden's staff and helped coach the guards. She left Memphis to return to her hometown of Jonesboro, Ark., where she coach at Arkansas State. Following a two-year stop at Louisiana-Lafayette, Sullivan joined Kellie Harper's staff at Missouri State in 2012-13.
There is a tie from the Tigers staff to Missouri State as well. Memphis' Director of Basketball Operations, Donease Smith, played her freshman season of college basketball at Missouri State, appearing in 23 games. She transferred to Central Missouri State to finish her playing career.
Hearn Named to Pre-Season Team
Junior guard Ariel Hearn was voted to The American Athletic Conference pre-season first team in the coaches' polling. She joins fellow first-team honorees Breanna Stewart, Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Moriah
Tigers Picked Sixth
Memphis was picked to finish sixth in the 11-team American Athletic Conference preseason coaches' poll.
Defending national champion UConn was picked to win the league, followed by USF, a team that went to the WNIT semifinals last year.
League newcomers East Carolina were picked to finish third with Temple and Tulane tied for fourth in the coaches' poll ahead of Memphis.
Fuqua-Bey Earns Preseason Honor
Junior forward Asianna Fuqua-Bey and teammate Ariel Hearn were each named to the CollegeSportsMadness.com's American Athletic Conference preseason teams.
Hearn was a second team honoree and Fuqua-Bey was a fourth team honoree on the online outlet's list.
Looking for a Grand
Junior guard Ariel Hearn scored a career-high 27 points in the last game Memphis played. That pushed her to within five points of her 1,000th career point at Memphis.
Hearn, with 995 points coming in to her junior campaign, is trying to become the 23rd player in Memphis history to score 1,000 career points and the first to cross the plateau since Nicole Dickson hit the 1,000 point mark in her junior year's regular season finale at Rice in 2012.
Hearn will be playing her 64th career game (she has 59 career starts) on Friday. If she can score her five points in the Missouri State game, she will have reached the 1,000 point mark the fifth-fastest in school history. In 63 career games, Hearn has been held to under five points just one time, a 3-point outing against SMU in her freshman season.
Fastest to 1,000 Career Points
LaTonya Johnson -- 54 games
Keeta Matthews -- 55 games
Brittany Carter -- 60 games
Kitty Allen -- 62 games
Tamika Whitmore -- 64 games
No Senior Discounts
For a second straight season, Memphis is putting a young team on the floor. But unlike last year when the team had an assortment of tranfsers and junior college grads making up a senior class, this year's roster does not have a single senior on it.
Six New Faces
With no seniors on the roster, Memphis will add six new faces to the blue and gray this year, including junior college transfer Brianna Wright, who led Chipola JC to the Juco Championship semifinals last year. Alisha Celestine, Cheyenne Creighton, Brea Elmore, Amber Holmes and Damonique Miller make up a five-player freshman class for Memphis.
Wilder-Cochran sets Freshman Assist Record
Freshman point guard Breigha Wilder-Cochran broke Ariel Hearn's freshman assist record last season.
Wilder-Cochran finished the season with 125 total assists and ranked third in The American with 4.0 assists per game.
The 125 assists in a single season is impressive, and to put that in perspective, Wilder-Cochran was just 20 assists shy of breaking in to the single season top 10 at Memphis in single season assists.
Speaking of Triple Digit Assists
Last year marked the first time a Melissa McFerrin-coached Memphis team has had two players with 100 or more assists (Wilder-Cochran with 125, Hearn with 109). It's actually the first time since 1997-98 that a Memphis team has had two players with 100 or more assists in the same season (Yolanda Reed, 141, and Heather Phillips, 105).
Hearn's 109 assists last year ranked sixth all-time in the sophomore records.
Hearn is 108 assists away from breaking in to the career top 10 at Memphis in assists, where Kitty Allen sits with 326 assists.
Rowser Back to Full Strength
Redshirt sophomore Mooriah Rowser made it back to the Tigers' lineup last year, but was battling all season to get to 100 percent following knee surgery in her freshman season.
As a freshman, she was the team's second-leading scorer with 12.0 ppg when she went down in the third game of the season in the Preseason WNIT. Last year, she made it back in time for preseason, but was still not 100%.
In the exhition game againt Rhodes College, Rowser played without the knee brace she had to wear all of last year and was Memphis' leading scorer with 18 points on 5-for-7 shooting.
Already possessing a good mid-range jumpshot when she came to Memphis, Rowser may have extended her range a bit in the off-season. She opened the Rhodes game with three straight three-point field goals and finished 4-for-5 from beyond the arc in 26 minutes.
Going long?
Memphis returns its top two three-point shooters from last season. Ariel Hearn led Memphis with 69 three-point field goals made and ranked in the top five in the American Athletic Conference in both three-point field goal percentage (37.3) and three-point field goals made (2.2). Her 69 triples last year missed tying the single season school record by just one. Alex Winchell's record of 70 triples in a season withstood Hearn knocking down five threes in the conference tournament loss to Houston last year.
For her career, Hearn is four threes shy of her 100th career triple. When she passes the 100 career three-point field goal mark, she will become just the ninth player in Memphis history to score 100 or more field goals from beyond the arc. Hearn is currently ninth in career three-point field goals made (96).
The team's second-leading three-point shooter last year was Taylor Williams. Williams knocked down 30.8 percent of her shots from beyond the arc (24-for-78) and was one of the Tigers' stronger rebounding guards, finishing with 103 rebounds in 31 games.
Fuqua-Bey Getting Offensive
Junior forward Asia Fuqua-Bey has been challenged by the Tigers' staff to become more of an offensive threat. Already a solid defender and rebounder, the junior is looking for another 34 points to hit the 500 career point mark. She will also likely pass the 500 career rebound mark this season, as she grabbed 406 rebounds in her first two seasons at Memphis. When she passes the 500 career rebound mark, she will be one of just 21 Tigers in school history to grab 500 or more career rebounds. She currently stands 28th in the school record book with 406 career caroms. Her 6.4 rebound per game career average ranks 15th in career rebounding average.
