FORT MYERS, Fla. – Florida Gulf Coast University women's basketball prepares to defend the nest and its stronghold on the conference regular season standings this Thursday and Saturday, hosting Central Arkansas and North Alabama at Alico Arena.
The Eagles face Central Arkansas at 7 p.m. Thursday for its Play 4 Kay Cancer Awareness Night. Wear pink in support of the cause. Saturday, FGCU welcomes North Alabama at 4 p.m. for Homecoming Weekend. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.
Central Arkansas (16-6, 8-1 ASUN) and North Alabama (10-12, 6-3 ASUN) sit second and third in the conference standings. Central Arkansas is allowing the second-fewest points per game (58.5) in the ASUN this season, just behind the Eagles at 56.7. North Alabama's Alexis Callins is top five in the conference in scoring averaging, providing 15.5 points per game for the Lions.
FGCU will counter with Emani Jefferson, who earned her third consecutive ASUN Player and Newcomer of the Week honors Monday. Jefferson continues to heat up down the stretch, dropping at least 20 points in four of the last six games. The Miami native is averaging a team-leading 17.4 points per game.
FGCU (19-4, 9-0 ASUN) has won 12 straight games, not having yet lost in 2024, and is the only team in the ASUN to remain undefeated in conference play. The Eagles are just 11 teams around the country that have stayed perfect in league play. FGCU has also won 24th straight at home, eyeing to extend the nation's third-longest active home winning streak.
Against current ASUN members, the Green and Blue has notched 31 straight victories for the nation's longest active conference win streak. FGCU is 2-0 all-time against Central Arkansas and 11-1 when facing North Alabama. UNA's lone win against FGCU occurred in 2020 in Fort Myers. Since then, FGCU has won six straight against the Lions.
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 9.0 made threes per game, ranking 12th 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 remained perched 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 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 (662-136) 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.
