Bulldogs Face No. 1 Seeded Liberty on Thursday

CONWAY, S.C. – The UNC Asheville women's basketball team, coming off a 68-54 first round victory over Coastal Carolina, will face the No. 1 seeded Liberty Flames in the quarterfinals of the VisitMyrtleBeach.com Big South Championships on Thursday at 12:00 p.m. at The HTC Center.

Thursday's game can be seen on ESPN3 and can be watched at this link.

Asheville (9-21) is coming off of a 14 point victory over Coastal Carolina on Tuesday evening. The victory was the second consecutive first round victory for the Bulldogs in the Big South Championships. Liberty (23-6) is the No. 1 seed in the tournament and has won the championship on 15 occasions.

“We have a tough task ahead of us tomorrow versus Liberty, in particular on the glass,” said head coach Brenda Mock Kirkpatrick. “They have been an extremely consistent and solid team all year and to make it through this league with only one loss is very difficult. I have a lot of respect for the way they play the game. Our team in turn has been playing well and playing together. We fully expect to be in a possession battle.

Thursday's matchup will represent this seventh all-time meeting between the Bulldogs and the Lady Flames in the Big South Championships. Liberty is unbeaten, 6-0, in the previous six contests, including 4-0 against the Blue & White in the quarterfinals.

Having started the conference season 2-0, Liberty handed Asheville its first conference loss of the season, 67-55, back on December 30, 2014. The Bulldogs battled Liberty to the very end in the reverse fixture at the Vines Center on January 27, as Brittany Gwyn led the team with 17 points in a four-point loss, 62-58 to LU.

Freshman Khaila Webb has come up big in Asheville's two games at The HTC Center in Conway this season, averaging 13.5 points per game.

Ashley Rininger leads the Lady Flames in points (12.3) and rebounds (8.5). Liberty will be a tough matchup on the boards. LU out rebounds their opponent by ten rebounds per game for the season.

The winner of Thursday's game will move on to face the winner of No. 4 seeded Winthrop and No. 5 seeded Campbell at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.

BULLDOG NOTES

Liberty holds a 50-8 series advantage over the Bulldogs. The Lady Flames have won the last three meetings and 16 of the last 17 contests between the teams. Asheville head coach Brenda Mock Kirkpatrick is 1-5 vs. LU with the one win coming last year at Kimmel Arena when the Bulldogs downed the Flames, 83-80 in overtime.

The Bulldogs own just two wins in their last six seven games but defense is not the reason. In those seven games, only one team – Gardner-Webb – scored more than 57 points when the Runnin' Bulldogs downed Asheville 66-58 on Feb. 21. In the last seven games, the Bulldogs have given up an average of 55.5 points per game.

Asheville is just 4-22 in the quarterfinals of the Big South Tournament. However, the last three times the Bulldogs have won a quarterfinal game (1998, 2005, 2007) they advanced to the finals before winning a championship in 2007.

The Bulldogs are 3-4 at the HTC Center and 2-2 in Big South Tournament play.

Freshman guard Khaila Webb didn't play the first six games of the year with a leg injury. It's taken her awhile to get healthy but she is saving her best basketball at the end of the year. She scored a then career-best 11 points on Saturday against Coastal Carolina but that didn't last long as she tallied 16 points on 7-of-8 shooting from the field. In the past two games, Webb is 12-of-17 from the field with six steals and eight rebounds.

Senior guard Shonese Jones has 1,397 career points and is the current Big South career leader in scoring. She needs three points for 1,400 career points and is sixth all-time in career scoring at Asheville.

The Bulldogs have forced 63 turnovers in the last three games.

Asheville has lost eight games by five points or less.

The winner of Thursday's game will move on to face the winner of No. 4 seeded Winthrop and No. 5 seeded Campbell at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.