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VILLANOVA, Pa. – We are not done dancing yet.
 
The No. 22 and 12th-seeded FGCU women's basketball team (33-3) waltzed into Second Round of the 2023 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament in style Saturday afternoon, as graduate guard Sha Carter (Southfield, Mich./Wylie E. Groves HS/Walsh) scored a game-high 24 points to lead the Eagles to a 74-63 victory over 23rd-ranked and fifth-seeded Washington State at Finneran Pavilion.
 
The Green & Blue earned a Monday date with fourth-seeded Villanova, which took down 13th-seeded Cleveland State 76-59, for the right to advance to the Sweet 16. FGCU also advanced to the Second Round in 2015, 2018 and 2022, and is now 57-7 all-time as a ranked team, 48-16 all-time in Division I postseason play and 4-8 in the NCAA Tournament.
 
FGCU-Villanova will tip off at 7 p.m. Monday night, and will be televised on ESPNU.
 
FGCU now has three wins as a No. 12 seed, the most in NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament history. The Green & Blue also knocked off Missouri 80-70 in 2018, downed Virginia Tech 84-81 in 2022, and today vs. Washington State. San Francisco (1986), Kansas (2013), BYU (2014), and Quinnipiac (2017) won twice and advanced to the Sweet 16, and Belmont won back-to-back first-round games in 2021 and 2022.
 
Fifth-year guard Tishara Morehouse (Milwaukee, Wis./Rufus King HS/Nebraska CC) scored 16 points for the Eagles on Saturday. Redshirt sophomore guard Kierra Adams (Vancouver, Wash./Brookwood HS), who had played only five combined minutes in FGCU's last three games, came off the bench to score a career-high 12 points. And redshirt sophomore guard/forward Maddie Antenucci (Cincinnati, Ohio/Indian Hill HS) added 11 points – including a jaw-dropping, four-bounces-off-the-basket-and-backboard 3-pointer at the 5:03 mark of the third quarter.
 
FGCU made just 5-of-14 3-pointers, tying for a season low, but shot 55.6 percent from the field to upend the Pac-12 champion Cougars. The Green & Blue took control for good with a 30-16 third quarter in which it made 11-of-14 shots from the field and forced Washington State to miss nine of its 13 attempts.
 
"We have a team that can be explosive," said FGCU women's basketball coach Karl Smesko.
 
That is an understatement.

The decisive 10-minute stretch by the Eagles came after a back-and-forth first half that saw Washington State grab an early seven-point lead, then FGCU stormed back to go up by as much as six points – before finally settling at 32-21 Cougars at the break.
 
Following a first half that saw FGCU hit a season-low one 3-pointer, Antenucci sparked the Green & Blue scoring barrage with a trifecta of triples – the first expanding the Eagles' lead to 43-38, the second making it 46-40, and the third the highlight-reel one for a 49-40 lead.
 
Graduate guard Emma List (Colorado Springs, Colo./Discovery Canyon Campus/Albany) led FGCU with seven rebounds, and Carter added six. Graduate guard Sophia Stiles (Malta, Mont./Malta HS/Montana), playing in her first game after missing the ASUN Tournament final with a facial injury, grabbed a game-best four steals. Washington State's Tara Wallack finished with a double-double of 16 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out with 5:39 to play.
 
"I feel like that pretty much summed it up for us in the third quarter," Carter said afterward with a laugh.
 
FGCU used Antenucci's spark and turned it into an offensive inferno Washington State couldn't manage – taking a 13-point lead into the game's final 10 minutes and expanding it to 16 points on a driving Adams layup with 4:13 remaining. From there, the Eagles played keep-away on offensive possessions before celebrating with the raucous Green & Blue faithful that made the trip to Pennsylvania and then dousing Smesko with water in a jubilant locker room celebration.
 
"It just felt like we didn't get a handle on how to guard them," Washington State coach Kamie Ethridge said.
 
One of the hottest teams in the country, FGCU has now won 15 straight games – which includes capturing a 13^th ASUN regular-season title and the ASUN Tournament crown for a record 10^th time.
 
This is FGCU's seventh straight NCAA Tournament appearance and ninth overall in just 12 years of eligibility, joining squads from the 2021-22, 2020-21, 2018-19, 2017-18, 2016-17, 2014-15, 2013-14, and 2011-12 seasons.
 
Entering the 2023 March Madness, the No. 5 seed was 85-23 against No. 12 seeds (.787). No. 4 seeds are 18-3 (.857) in Second-Round series vs. No. 5 seeds. This is the first NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament that has seen two No. 12 seeds advance to the Second Round, as Toledo knocked off Iowa State 80-73 in the Seattle 3 bracket.
 
FGCU has made 418 3-pointers this season – just 12 3s behind their own all-time record of 431 in 2017-18. The Eagles have tripled their opponents' treys total, allowing only 139 this season. FGCU has led the nation in made 3s per game in each of the past three years and in four of the last five seasons.
 
Entering this season, FGCU was selected by both the coaches and the media to repeat as ASUN champions. FGCU is currently ranked No. 2 in the Collegeinsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll. The Eagles finished with a program-best-ever No. 20 ranking in 2021-22 and have four Top 25 finishes in the past five seasons.
 
The Green & Blue and Connecticut are the only active programs in the nation to win at least 25 games in 13 straight seasons. FGCU joins South Carolina as the only two Division I programs to win 30 or more games in six of the last nine seasons.
 
For complete coverage of FGCU women's basketball, follow the Eagles on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at @FGCU_WBB and online at www.FGCUAthletics.com. You can also sign up to have news on FGCU women's basketball and other programs delivered directly to your inbox by visiting www.fgcuathletics.com/email.
 
COACH SMESKO
FGCU head coach Karl Smesko maintains a record of 643-131 (.831) overall in his career, the third-highest winning percentage among active Division I coaches behind only UConn's Geno Auriemma and LSU's Kim Mulkey. He has also led the Eagles to a 249-19 (.929) mark in ASUN regular-season play and a 33-2 (.943) record in ASUN tournament play. Over the previous 11-plus seasons, he has guided FGCU to a 185-7 (.963) record in conference play with six undefeated seasons. The 13-time ASUN Coach of the Year has led the program to 13 straight 25-win seasons and 19 consecutive 20-win campaigns, including 30-plus wins in six of the last nine years. On top of all that, the Eagles are 582-104 (.848) all-time since Smesko started the program in the 2002-03 season, and the Green & Blue's .848 all-time winning percentage is the best in NCAA Division I women's basketball history.
 
E.A.G.L.E. CAMPAIGN
IT TAKES A TEAM to achieve our newest goal - a $10 million campaign to address student-athlete needs in continued academic success, life skills, mental health, nutrition, and strength and conditioning as well as departmental needs in facility expansion and improvement as well as mentoring and leadership training for coaches and staff. The name embodies our mission and the purpose of the E.A.G.L.E. Campaign - Eagle Athletics Generating Lifetime Excellence. Join Our Team and pledge your gift today to help the Eagles of tomorrow!
 
#FEEDFGCU
FGCU Athletics sponsors events in November and April to benefit the FGCU Campus Food Pantry (https://www.fgcu.edu/adminservices/foodpantry) and the Harry Chapin Food Bank (www.harrychapinfoodbank.org), FGCU Athletics' charities of choice. For more information, including how to make a contribution, please visit https://www.fgcu.edu/adminservices/foodpantry and utilize the hashtag #FeedFGCU to help raise awareness. 
 
ABOUT FGCU
FGCU teams have combined to win an incredible 96 conference regular season and tournament titles in just 15-plus seasons at the Division I level. Additionally, in just 11-plus seasons of D-I postseason eligibility, the Eagles have had a combined 48 teams or individuals compete in NCAA championships. In 2022, the men's golf team became the first program to earn an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. Nine FGCU programs have earned a top-25 national ranking in their respective sport - including women's basketball (No. 20 in 2021-22 and No. 22 in 2022-23), baseball (No. 20 in 2023), beach volleyball (No. 20, 2022), and both men's soccer (2018, 2019) and women's soccer (2018) as five of the most recent. In 2016-17, the Green & Blue posted a department-best sixth-place finish in the DI-AAA Learfield Directors' Cup and top-100 showing nationally, ahead of several Power-5 and FBS institutions. In 2018-19, the Eagles had an ASUN and state of Florida best seven teams earn the NCAA's Public Recognition Award for their Academic Progress Rate in their sport. FGCU also collectively earned a record 3.66 GPA in the classroom in the fall 2022 semester and has outperformed the general University undergraduate population for 27 consecutive semesters. The past seven semesters (Fall 2019 – Fall 2022) saw another milestone reached as all 15 programs achieved a 3.0-or-higher cumulative team GPA. The Eagles also served an all-time high 7,200 volunteer hours in 2017 - being recognized as one of two runners-up for the inaugural NACDA Community Service Award presented by the Fiesta Bowl.
 
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