FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida Gulf Coast University women's basketball welcomes in-state foe Stetson for a 4 p.m. Saturday showdown at Alico Arena.
A three-game home stand is all that remains for the Eagles before the 2024 Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament commences on March 8. FGCU clinched the ASUN regular season title last weekend for the seventh consecutive season under head coach Karl Smesko, 14th all-time.
FGCU (23-4) is still perfect in league play at 13-0 and has emerged No. 3 overall in the latest CollegeInsider.com Mid Major Top 25 poll for the second consecutive week. FGCU has gone undefeated in the ASUN six times in the program's history, last accomplishing the feat three years ago during the 2020-21 season. The Eagles are among only 10 teams in the country to currently remain unblemished in the respective conference.
The Green and Blue enters the weekend matchup on a 16-game win streak and has yet to taste defeat in 2024. The Eagles are one of just six teams in the nation with an active win streak of 15 or more games.
The Eagles will also look to protect and extend their home and conference win streaks Saturday. FGCU has won 26 consecutive games at home, the third-longest active home win streak in the country. FGCU has also won 35 straight contests against current ASUN member institutions for the nation's longest active conference win streak.
FGCU defeated Stetson 66-51 on the road in January. Maddie Antenucci exploded for a career-high 25 points in the win. The Green and Blue is 35-5 all-time when facing the Hatters and are winners of the last five meetings. Stetson is the last current ASUN team to which FGCU has fallen to. The Hatters took down the Eagles 55-58 in Fort Myers in 2022.
This season, Stetson (15-12, 10-3 ASUN) has the third-best scoring defense in the conference, holding opponents to 59.2 points per game to the Eagles' league-leading and nationally top 20 55.2 points per game.
Offensively, FGCU will counter with its #Raining3s attack. The Eagles average 30.1 3-point attempts per game, the second most in the nation. Of those attempts, FGCU produces 9.4 made threes per game, ranking seventh nationally heading into the weekend. Brylee Bartram paces the Eagles from behind the arc with 51 made 3-pointers this season.
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. FGCU holds the NCAA record for the most made threes in a single season, sinking 431 during the 2017-18 campaign.
- The Eagles remained perched at No. 3 overall in the latest CollegeInsider.com's Mid Major Top 25 Poll for the second consecutive week 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 seventh Top 25 win in the program's history. The Green and Blue has finished in the AP Top 25 in five out of the last six seasons. During the last four campaigns, FGCU is the only mid-major program with four straight AP Top 25 finishes.
- 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 .830 (666-136) 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. Smekso has produced 20 straight 20-win seasons with the Green and Blue dating all the way back to 2004-05. Smesko has also guided the Eagles to 13 consecutive 25-plus win seasons, an accomplishment only achieved by UConn and FGCU.
- Redshirt junior Emani Jefferson was named a semifinalist for the 2024 Becky Hammon Mid Major Player of the Year Award. Kierstan Bell won the honor in 2021 and 2022. FGCU is the only program with three players named semifinalists in the award's short four-year history, as Jefferson now joins Bell and Keri Jewett-Giles.
