ASHEVILLE, N.C.?UNC Asheville's women's basketball team returns to the court at 1 p.m. on Saturday to face Coastal Carolina in a regionally televised game on FOX SportSouth.
The Bulldogs (9-9, 0-1 Big South) dropped their conference opener to High Point last Saturday. Head Coach Betsy Blose who will seeking her 200th career victory knows her team needs to take care of the basketball against Coastal Carolina (11-5, 0-2 Big South). “We turned the ball over too much against High Point,” said Blose. “Coastal is a great three-point shooting team, so we are going to have to guard the perimeter very well and take care of the ball on our end.”
Asheville's leading scorer Ashton Barton had 21 points against High Point last week. She is fourth in the Big South in scoring at 13.1 points per game. She is 27 points shy of the 1,000 career point milestone. Stacy Shepard continues to lead the Big South in rebounding at 9.3 boards per game. She had 11 points and 10 rebounds against Coastal in the Big South Tournament last season.
The Chanticleers are also in search of their first conference victory after dropping back-to-back home games to Radford and Liberty. Three-point specialist Lacey Lyons leads the team averaging 13.3 points per game. She leads the Big South in three-pointers made at 2.93 per game and is 45-for-110 (40 percent) from long range. She is also an 88 percent free throw shooter. Vicky Blanchard is scoring 8.7 points and pulling down a team-high 7.1 rebounds per game. CCU leads the Big South making 6.47 three-pointers per game and also leads the conference in scoring defense only allowing 51.5 points per game.
Coastal leads the all-time series 24-21 although it was Asheville that took two of three against the Chanticleers last season. CCU won 73-61 in Asheville, while the Dogs took a 74-46 victory in Conway. The two teams met in the first round of the Big South Tournament in Asheville with the Dogs winning 65-51 on their way to the conference crown.
Tip-off is at 1:05 p.m. on SportSouth. The game was originally scheduled for 2 p.m. but was moved for television.
