FORT MYERS, Fla. – Top-seeded Florida Gulf Coast University women's basketball faces No. 9 Jacksonville in Saturday's Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament Quarterfinal Round.
Saturday's tip is slated for a 6 p.m. start on ESPN+. FGCU is 33-2 all-time in the ASUN Tournament, with the last loss coming to none other than Jacksonville, 56-54, in the 2016 championship game.
No. 9 Jacksonville defeated No. 10 Bellarmine 79-62 Friday in the First Round. Edyn Battle exploded for a game-high 24 points to advance the Dolphins into another date with the Eagles.
The Eagles are 36-3 all-time when facing Jacksonville, winners of the last 17 meetings. The Green and Blue opened the the 2023-24 conference slate with a 69-47 victory, and just six days ago, the Eagles soared past JU 80-55 on senior night or its 19-straight win of the year.
Three Eagles reached double figures last Saturday as Uju Ezeudu paced all FGCU scorers with 17 points, her 19th game of the season with 10 or more. Emani Jefferson and Sofia Persson produced 16 points apiece.
Jefferson won the ASUN's Player, Defensive and Newcomer of the Year Award. Jefferson is the only Eagle in the program's history to win all three awards in the same season. Ezeudu earned ASUN All-First Team honors, and Maddie Antenucci landed on the ASUN All-Academic Team.
FGCU won its seventh consecutive ASUN regular season crown this season to earn the tournament's top seed. The Eagles won 26 games and posted a perfect 16-0 record in ASUN play. Only FGCU and UConn have recorded 25-plus wins in 14 consecutive seasons.
The Green and Blue won all 16 conference games by double digits for an average spread of 24.5 points. FGCU possessed the number one ranked defense in the ASUN, allowing only 51 points per game in ASUN play.
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. This season, the Eagles are third nationally in 3-point attempts per game, averaging 30.0 attempts per game. Of those attempts, FGCU is knocking down 9.3 threes per contest, ranking ninth in the nation.
- The Eagles soared up to No. 2 overall in the latest CollegeInsider.com's Mid Major Top 25 Poll for the second connective 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 ASUNTournament 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 entered 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 .831 (669-136) 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 on January 31 of this year with a win over Bellarmine. Smesko has also guided the Eagles to 14 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.
