Women’s Basketball Takes On No. 19/19 North Carolina in ACC Tournament

March 2, 2011

GREENSBORO, NC – The Clemson women’s basketball team will take on No. 19/19 North Carolina in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday at 8:00 pm in the Greensboro Coliseum. The game will be available live on the ACC Network at TheACC.com and will be on the radio on the Clemson Tiger Sports Network.

Clemson (10-19, 3-11 ACC) enters as the 11-seed, while North Carolina (22-7, 8-6 ACC) are the six-seed after dropping four straight games to end the season. The Tar Heels are ranked 19th in both polls, and this will be the tenth game Clemson has played against a ranked opponent this season.

The tip time is scheduled for 8:00 pm, but could be pushed back, depending on the duration of the Boston College-NC State game at 6:00 pm on the Coliseum floor.

The winner of the Clemson-North Carolina matchup will play three-seed and No. 14/14 Florida State on Friday at 8:00 pm in the Coliseum.

Clemson and North Carolina have a long history in the ACC Tournament, having met 13 times previously, with nine of the decisions going to the Tar Heels. Clemson head coach Itoro Coleman is in her first season leading the program, but reached the championship game in all four of her seasons as a player at Clemson (1996-99).

Coleman’s Lady Tigers played the Tar Heels in three of the four championship games, with North Carolina and current head coach Sylvia Hatchell taking two of those meetings.

Coleman led Clemson to ACC tiles in her freshman (1996) and senior seasons (1999), earning Tournament MVP honors in the latter.

North Carolina defeated Clemson on Feb. 10, 60-47, in Tigertown earlier this season. Clemson held the high-powered Tar Heels to their second-fewest points of the season at that time, and forced a season-high 27 turnovers. Clemson found itself struggling to put the ball in the hoop, hitting just 26.9 percent of their field goals and just 7-29 from behind the arc.

Clemson is having the most prolific three-point shooting season in team history, nailing a school record 168 3-pointers in a school-record 548 attempts. Both Sthefany Thomas (67 3FG) and Kirstyn Wright (62 3FG) had put up top-six single-season performances in Clemson history in terms of three-point field goals made.

The Lady Tigers are ranked second in the conference with 6.4 threes made per game, and rank third in three-point percentage at .341.