FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida Gulf Coast University women's basketball opens Atlantic Sun Conference play on the road at Jacksonville and North Florida.
FGCU (10-4) travels to Jacksonville (4-9) for its conference opener Thursday at 6:30 p.m. and turns around to face North Florida (6-8) on Saturday at 2 p.m. Both conference matchups will be streamed on ESPN+. The Eagles were picked as the preseason favorites in the ASUN Coaches Poll, while Jasonville was picked to finish ninth and North Florida was slotted 11th.
The Eagles possesses the nation's second-longest active conference win streak, winning 22 straight against current ASUN members – just three behind UNLV's nation-leading 25 consecutive victories in Mountain West Conference action. The Eagles' last loss to a current ASUN member occurred back in 2022, falling 58-55 at home versus Stetson some 691 days ago.
FGCU has consistently dominated the ASUN regular season. The Eagles have lost just seven ASUN regular season games since the start of the 2011-12 season, the year which FGCU became eligible for postseason play.
FGCU has gone undefeated in conference play six times, and the Green & Blue has recorded 12 or more ASUN wins in every season since joining the conference in 2007-08. The Eagles have reached the 12-win benchmark 16 times, with the next closest team during that span being Stetson with just five.
NOTES:
- Head coach Karl Smesko has built and engineered the program's ascension within the women's college basketball world by its modern offense attack, leading the nation in made threes per game for four consecutive seasons. FGCU is currently averaging 9.4 made threes per game this season, ranking 11th 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 remain perched at 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 Top 25 in five out of the last six seasons. FGCU is the only mid-major program with four straight Top 25 finishes over the last four campaigns.
- FGCU, South Carolina, Stanford and UConn are the only four D-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 Atlantic Sun Conference regular season title and ninth ASUN Tournament Championship, along with capturing their fourth-ever NCAA Tournament victory.
- The Green and Blue soared into the 2023-24 season as the all-time winningest program in women's college basketball history, with a win percentage of .845.
- Smesko's career winning percentage of .828 (653-136) has him positioned as the third-winningest active Division I head coach just behind none other than UConn's Geno Auriemma and LSU's Kim Mulkey. In 2021, FGCU shocked the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge 88-74.
