Clemson Closes Regular Season Sunday at No. 17 Georgia Tech

Feb. 25, 2012

CLEMSON, SC – The Clemson Lady Tigers will play their final game of the regular season on Sunday in Atlanta against No. 17/19 Georgia Tech. The teams tip off at 2:00 pm at Forbes Arena on the campus of Morehouse College, due to the renovations taking place at Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets (21-7, 11-4 ACC) nipped the Lady Tigers (6-20, 2-13 ACC), 63-54, in Clemson on Jan. 29. The game will be the ACC finale for each team and set the final seedings for the ACC Tournament, which starts next Thursday in Greensboro, NC. The is Clemson’s only game of the season played within the state of Georgia, and will be a homecoming of sorts for four players and head coach Itoro Coleman, who also hails from Georgia. Clemson holds a 42-25 all-time advantage in the series, but the Jackets have won four in a row. Nikki Dixon (12.8 ppg), Shaniqua Pauldo (7.9 ppg), Lindsey Mason (6.4 ppg, 2.7 bpg) and Chancie Dunn (4.0 ppg), all hail from the state, with Dixon, Dunn, and Mason from the Atlanta area. The four players combined for 41 of Clemson’s 54 points in the first matchup of the season, which saw Clemson within two points with 1:30 to play before the Jackets closed on a 7-0 run. It will be the fifth game of the season against a ranked team, and the second chance of the season for a ranked win in the ACC on the road. Clemson defeated North Carolina in Chapel Hill earlier in the season, as three players played in front of friends and family in the Tar Heel state.The Lady Tigers will need to protect the rim the way they have most of the season, as they rank sixth in the nation and second in the ACC with 6.1 blocks per game. They are led by Lindsey Mason, whose 69 blocks are the 5th-most by a Clemson player in a single season in school history. Her160 career blocks are second all-time at Clemson. Dixon, an Alpharetta native, continued her stellar debut season, scoring in double-figures for the 19th time this season, grabbing a career-best nine rebounds, and recording five steals. She leads the team in scoring, steals, starts, and minutes, and ranks second in assists and third in rebounding. Clemson is likely to match up with Virginia or North Carolina in the first round of the ACC Tournament, which begins Thursday.