FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida Gulf Coast University women's basketball hits the road for the Volunteer State to battle Lipscomb and Austin Peay. FGCU faces Lipscomb at 7 p.m. Thursday and Austin Peay at 7 p.m. Saturday.
The Eagles (15-4, 5-0) remained perfect in the Atlantic Sun Conference over the weekend with a dominant 28-point victory over unbeaten Kennesaw State. FGCU led by as many as 38 against the Owls. Redshirt junior Emani Jefferson collected ASUN Player and Newcomer of the Week with her team-leading performances against Kennesaw State and Queens.
FGCU sits atop the ASUN regular season standings as the only team to remain unblemished in league play. The Eagles have posted a perfect conference resume only six times in their existence. FGCU currently leads the conference in 11 statistical categories.
FGCU is riding an eight-game win streak into Tennessee, not having lost a game in 2024, and has won 27 straight conference games against current ASUN member institutions. The Eagle's conference win streak is the longest of any team in the nation.
The Green and Blue is a perfect 34-0 against Lipscomb and 2-0 all-time when facing Austin Peay. The Governors held FGCU to just 51 points a season ago.
NOTES:
- Head coach Karl Smesko has built and engineered the program's historic ascension within the women's college basketball world with its #Raining3s attack, leading the nation in made threes per game the last four seasons. This season, FGCU is currently averaging 9.5 made threes per game, ranking eighth nationally in the category. FGCU holds the NCAA record for the most made threes in a single season, sinking 431 during the 2017-18 campaign.
- The Eagles climbed back up to No. 4 overall in the latest CollegeInsider.com's Mid Major Top 25 Poll, and have received votes in the Associated Press Poll twice this season after knocking off No. 18 North Carolina in the Gulf Coast Showcase. The Green and Blue has finished in the AP Top 25 in five out of the last six seasons. FGCU is the only mid-major program with four straight AP Top 25 finishes during the last four campaigns.
- FGCU, South Carolina, Stanford and UConn are the only four Division I programs to record 30 or more wins in three of the last five seasons. The Eagles went 33-4 a season ago, winning their 13th ASUN regular season title and ninth ASUN Tournament Championship, along with capturing their fourth-ever NCAA Tournament First Round victory. FGCU is the winningest 12th seed in NCAA Tournament history.
- With an all-time win percentage of .845, the Green and Blue soared into the 2023-24 season as the winningest program in the history of women's college basketball. FGCU earned 10 of the 12 first-place votes in the 2023-24 ASUN Preseason Coaches Poll and 38 of the possible 40 first-place votes in the ASUN Preseason Media Poll.
- Smesko's career win percentage of .829 (658-136) has him positioned as the third-winningest active Division I head coach, just behind UConn's Geno Auriemma and LSU's Kim Mulkey. In 2021, FGCU shocked the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge 88-74. Smesko was named to Her Hoops Stats' 2024 preseason watch list for the Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Award.
