GAMEDAY LINKS: WATCH | LIVE STATS | GAME NOTES
ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Concordia University women's basketball team (15-6, 10-4 NSIC) opens up a four game homestand this weekend with Minot State (14-4, 10-4 NSIC) and U-Mary (11-6, 9-5 NSIC) coming to the Gangelhoff Center.
THE MATCH-UPS... The Golden Bears meet Minot State for just the second time in the schools' history. The first meeting came nearly a year ago to the day on February 1st, 2013, and resulted in an 85-65 Golden Bear win in Minot.
CU holds an 8-5 all-time record against the Mary Marauders. The Golden Bears have went 4-1 in St. Paul against U-Mary and have won three of the last four in the series overall.
LAST YEAR IN MINOT... In the first-ever meeting between the two schools, Concordia picked up a 20-point win at Minot State at the Minot State Dome. The Beavers went on a run to erase an early ten point deficit to tie the game at 33 before Concordia went on a 6-1 spurt to end the half with a five point lead (39-34) and stayed hot to start the second half, opening the lead back to nine points (45-36) to cap a 12-3 spree that put them ahead for good. By the 12:47 mark of the second half, Concordia led by 17 with a 22-5 run spanning nearly 11 minutes of play after the game's last tie. From there, the margin was never closer than 10 points, 63-53, when
Carissa Wolyniec (Minneapolis, Minn.) drained a three-pointer to pull away.
Wolyniec finished with 16 points including four three-pointers. The Golden Bears were led by
Anika Whiting's (Ashland, Wis.) game-high 21 points on 10-of-17 shooting.
Rachel Hansen addd 12 points, three assists and two steals. She shot just twice, making both field goals, and was 8-of-9 at the line.
LAST YEAR IN BISMARCK... Concordia grabbed a 78-63 win over U-Mary to complete the weekend sweep in North Dakota. The Golden Bears used a 17-4 run to overcome an early deficit and kept the 10-point lead into the break, 36-26, despite shooting 27.8% (10-36) from the field in the half. There was a tie and four lead changes in the opening half, but the lead never changed hands again as the Marauders were never closer than eight points the rest of the game. Concordia reached the foul line 10 more times, going 22-of-26 at the stripe to U-Mary's 12-of-16. Rebounding also heavily favored Concordia, 48-38 including a 13-9 edge on the offensive glass.
The Golden Bears were led inside by Whiting with 20 points and 12 rebounds as she shot 8-of-16 from the floor. Hansen scored 13 of her 15 points in the second half and finished with another solid around effort. She added eight rebounds and seven assists while playing all 40 minutes.
LAST TIME OUT... The Golden Bears extended their winning streak to four this weekend with a road sweep of Upper Iowa and Winona State. The Golden Bears built a comfortable 18 point lead against the Peacocks, but UIU came back to tie the game with 6:55 to go in the game. Upper Iowa kept it close but was never able to pull ahead as CU won 71-65. On Saturday, the Golden Bears fell behind by double digits early in the second half but were able to overcome the deficit in the game's final minutes to steal a 65-57 win on the road. The Golden Bears' hot shooting and advantage on the glass in the second half helped Concordia erase a five point deficit at the break and come out with their 10th conference win.
1,000-POINT CLUB...
Carissa Wolyniec is closing in on becoming the 26th member of the 1,000-point club as she is just 29 points from reaching the mark.
TAKING CARE OF THE ROCK... The NSIC is a league that takes care of the ball well, and on top of that list is the Golden Bears. CU leads the nation by only committing 11.8 turnovers per game. The Golden Bears force 14.2 per game to claim a differential of +2.4.
