BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Twelfth-seeded FGCU women's basketball takes on fifth-seeded/No. 18 Oklahoma at 4 p.m. Saturday in the First Round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament at Assembly Hall.
The first-ever meeting between the Eagles and the Sooners will air on ESPNews.
FGCU's path to the Big Dance consisted of a 29-4 record, a 22-game win streak, a perfect 16-0 mark in league play and its seventh consecutive ASUN regular season and tournament title. FGCU will be making its 10th all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Once again, FGCU dominated the ASUN. The Eagles won all 16 of their conference games by double digits, with the smallest margin of victory being 11 and the largest being 42 points for an average of a dominating 24.5 points. Oklahoma (22-9, 15-3) won the Big 12 regular season championship and advanced as far as the Big 12 Semifinals before falling to Iowa State 85-65.
Oklahoma and the Eagles did face a familiar opponent, North Carolina. The Sooners lost to North Carolina 61-52, while FGCU knocked off the No. 18 ranked overall Tar Heels 65-64 on a neutral court. In fact, FGCU accomplished the feat without the ASUN Player, Defensive and Newcomer of the Year Emani Jefferson.
Threes will be raining down in Bloomington Saturday on both sides. The Sooners average 25.7 threes per game this season, ranking 17th nationally, and hit 8.2 points per contest. FGCU averages 9.5 made threes per game, ranking seventh in the nation, and puts up an average of 30.2 shots from behind the arc. FGCU has led the nation in made threes the last four years, including 3-pointers made per game.
Saturday's winner will advance to Monday's Second-Round action, facing the winner of No.13 Fairfield and No. 4 Indiana.
Head coach Karl Smesko and the Eagles have done it before. FGCU has earned its title as the winningest 12th seed in NCAA Tournament history. In 2018, FGCU upset No. 5 Missouri and then No. 5 Virginia Tech in 2022. Just a season ago, the Green and Blue took down No. 5 Washington State. The Eagles aim for their third straight season with a victory on the national stage in the First Round.
FGCU is 4-9 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, and three of its four wins have come as a 12 seed. Nine Eagles on the FGCU roster have been to the Big Dance. Of those nine, six have played, but only one has ever started in the NCAA Tournament – Jefferson for Wright State.
Of FGCU's projected starting five, each one has scored 1,000+ points in their career. Ajulu Thatha, Sofia Persson, Dolly Cairns and Jefferson reached the benchmark this season with the Eagles.
NOTES:
- Coach 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 have soared up to No. 2 overall in the latest CollegeInsider.com's Mid Major Top 25 Poll for the fourth consecutive week, earning three first-place votes, 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. FGCU has not dropped any lower than No. 6 this season. The Green and Blue has finished in the AP Top 25 in five out of the last six seasons. Over the last four campaigns, FGCU has been 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. Only FGCU and UConn have won at least 25 games for 14 consecutive 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 over fifth-seeded Washington State. FGCU is the winningest 12th seed in NCAA Tournament history.
- With an all-time win percentage of .845, the Green and Blue entered into the 2023-24 season as the winningest program in women's college basketball history. FGCU has won 22 straight games this season, having yet to taste defeat in 2024. The streaks do not stop there. Eagles have won 32 straight at home and 41 consecutive games against current ASUN members, the nation's longest active conference win streak.
- Smesko's career win percentage of .831 (672-136) 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 back to 2004-05 and reached win No. 600 at FGCU this year with a win over Bellarmine.
- 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.
- Jefferson won the ASUN's postseason triple crown, winning the Player, Defensive and Newcomer of the Year Award. Jefferson is the only player in the program's history to win all three awards in the same season. Uju Ezeudu earned ASUN First Team recognition, and Maddie Antenucci landed on the ASUN All-Academic Team.
