Little Rock Welcomes LSU on Wednesday Night

GM 2 >> Little Rock (0-1) vs. LSU (1-1)
Wednesday, November 18 • 7:15 p.m. (CST)
Little Rock, Ark. • Jack Stephens Center
Live Stats | Live Video | Game Notes
Radio: Trey Schaap (PxP) on 920 AM
Television: Cox Sports TV
 
LITTLE ROCK – The Little Rock women's basketball team had a tough start to the 2015-16 season with a loss to Tulane on Friday, but the Trojans will look to get in the win column with a tough test on Wednesday. Southeastern Conference foe LSU comes to the Jack Stephens Center for the second time in three years ready for a 7:15 p.m. tipoff. At halftime of the men's game – set for a 5:15 p.m. tipoff – the Trojan women will be recognized for their tremendous 2014-15 season when their championship banner is unveiled and their rings are given out.
 
TIP OFF

• The Trojans opened their 2015-16 season with a 69-53 loss at Tulane on Friday. The Trojans scored just four points in the first quarter and trailed for the final 33 minutes of game.
• Kaitlyn Pratt had a great start to her year, recording a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. It was the third double-double of her career.
• Shanity James continued to prove she can be a double-figure scorer, providing 14 points for the Trojans in a starting role.
• Alexius Dawn earned her 35th consecutive start for the team, starting in every game of her career.
• Four of the seven Little Rock newcomers saw playing time on Friday at Tulane.
• The Little Rock women's basketball team is coming off its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in six seasons. The Trojans earned a No. 11 seed in last year's tournament and upset No. 6 seed Texas A&M in the first round.
• The team's victory over Texas A&M was the 700th of Coach Joe Foley's career. Foley is entering his 13th season with Little Rock in 2015-16 and is eighth among active Division I coaches in career wins.
• Little Rock lost three valuable seniors in Taylor Gault, Ka'Nesheia Cobbins and Kiera Clark and will look to make up for their scoring and defense this season.
• Little Rock and LSU are tied in the all-time series at 1-1. The Trojans defeated then-No. 24 LSU in Baton Rouge in last year's season opener.

ABOUT THE TROJANS
Little Rock had a tough loss to open the 2015-16 season on Friday, falling 69-53 at Tulane. The Trojans got in early foul trouble, and they committed 17 turnovers that led to 19 Green Wave points. A 4-point first quarter got things off to a bad start, and the Trojans never led after the seventh minute of the game despite a double-double from Kaitlyn Pratt and 14 points from Shanity James.
 
The Trojans are riding a huge wave of success over the last decade, making the national postseason for seven of the last eight seasons including four NCAA Tournament berths and three WNIT trips. Little Rock was picked third in the Sun Belt's preseason coaches poll and received two first-place votes.
 
ABOUT LSU

• The Tigers, based out of Baton Rouge, La., are 1-1 this season after losing their opener at Wake Forest and winning an overtime game against ULM on Sunday.
• Last season, LSU posted a 17-14 record and advanced to the NCAA Tournament where it lost to No. 6 seed South Florida. The Tigers made it to the second round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament, eventually losing to future No. 1 seed South Carolina.
• This season, Ayana Mitchell has led the Tigers with 14 points per game offensively, and Raigyne Moncrief isn't far behind with 11.5 points per game. On the boards, Alexis Hyder has 20 rebounds through two games and is the only Tiger in double figures in that category.
• The top assister for LSU is Moncrief. She has seven assists through two games. She also leads the team with eight steals. Hyder is the top shot blocker with four rejections so far.
• Nikki Fargas is the Tigers' head coach for the fourth consecutive season. She has an 84-51 record at LSU and a 156-77 record overall as a head coach.

 
THE SERIES AGAINST LSU
The Trojans and Tigers met for the first time ever at the Jack Stephens Center in 2013, and LSU escaped with a narrow victory. The tables turned in Baton Rouge last year, with Little Rock blowing out then-No. 24 LSU for a huge win on the road. In that game, Alexius Dawn, Ka'Nesheia Cobbins, Taylor Gault and Kaitlyn Pratt all recorded double-figure scoring as the Trojans won by 16.
 
A WIN AGAINST LSU WOULD…
…be the team's third consecutive victory in a home opener…be the second straight in the series against LSU…be the team's third straight win against an SEC team…be the team's 12th straight win at home…be Joe Foley's 701st career win.
 
LITTLE ROCK VS. THE SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE
Despite being geographically close to many of the Southeastern Conference's 14 teams, Little Rock has only played four of them. The Trojans' have four victories in 22 games against SEC schools: Two against Texas A&M in 2001 and 2015, another against Ole Miss in 2008 and one in the season opener against then-No. 24 LSU in 2014. The Trojans are 1-5 against Texas A&M overall, 1-0 against Ole Miss, 1-1 against LSU, 0-7 against Mississippi State and 0-1 against Auburn.
 
LITTLE ROCK IN HOME OPENERS
Since Joe Foley took over the Little Rock program for the start of the 2003-04 season, the Trojans boast a 10-2 record in home openers. Little Rock earned a 61-48 victory over Missouri State last season, and the team beat Sam Houston State by 4 points in 2012-13. The Trojans' only losses in home openers during Foley's tenure came in 2012 against Missouri State and 2004 against UT Arlington.
 
PRATT DOUBLE-DOUBLE
Junior forward Kaitlyn Pratt got her season off to a strong start, recording a double-double to top the Trojans in points and rebounds. Pratt had 15 points and 10 rebounds, earning the third double-double of her career. She had an earlier double-double against Memphis last season with 20 points and 10 rebounds, and her first career double-double came against Incarnate Word in 2013 with a 16-point, 15-rebounds effort. On Friday, Pratt used an impressive 6-of-10 shooting performance from the field and a 3-of-3 performance from the free-throw line to help her reach those 15 points.
 
JAMES DOUBLE-FIGURE SCORING
After Pratt's 15 points, junior Shanity James was not far behind with 14 points herself. James, who reached double figures in 20 of 33 games last season, scored four points above her 2014-15 average with those 14 points. James' six rebounds on Friday was also second on the team to Pratt.
 
FOUL AND TURNOVER TROUBLE
Little Rock's loss on Friday could partially be attributed to foul trouble and coughing up the ball. Starting guard Alexius Dawn played just five minutes in the first half after picking up three fouls, and at halftime Monique Townson and Kaitlyn Pratt also had three fouls. By the end of the game, two Trojans had fouled out and two more had four fouls; Little Rock committed 27 as a team and allowed 31 Tulane free-throw attempts. The Trojans also gave the Green Wave plenty of offensive opportunities by committed 17 turnovers. Tulane converted those turnovers into 19 points.
 
FIRST CAREER START
Monique Townson played in 22 games as a freshman but never had the opportunity to start. That changed quickly this year, as she got the start against Tulane and played a career-best 37 minutes. Townson also tied career highs with three made field goals and two assists. She was one point shy of tying her career high in points (9).
 
NEWCOMER PLAYING TIME
Of the Trojans' seven new players for 2015-16, four saw the court on Friday at Tulane. Kira Shepard saw the most minutes with 14, and Raeyana DeGray wasn't far behind with 13. But Ronjanae DeGray had the biggest impact on the scoreboard, putting up four points in just seven minutes. Shepard scored three assists and had a steal to go along with two points in her 14 minutes. Autummn Williams also played but had just one rebound in two minutes.
 
700 CLUB
Little Rock coach Joe Foley had a historic night against Texas A&M in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, earning his 700th victory as a coach. Foley is now one of just 11 active women's basketball coaches in the country across all three NCAA divisions two have earned 700 wins in his or her career and one of just eight currently in Division I. Foley earned more than half of those victories at Arkansas Tech, and he has 244 with the Trojans.
 
SUN BELT PRESEASON HONORS
Little Rock was selected to finish third in the league by the Sun Belt Conference coaches when the league announced its preseason poll in late October. The Trojans earned two first-place votes despite finishing third overall. On the individual side, Alexius Dawn was named Preseason All-Sun Belt First Team and Shanity James was named to the All-Sun Belt Second Team. Dawn was all-Sun Belt Second Team last year, while James has never earned a league season-ending award before.
 
DAWN OF A NEW SEASON
Little Rock senior Alexius Dawn enters her final year with the Trojans after making an incredible splash in her first year. Dawn drained 76 3-pointers last season, the second-most in a single year in Trojan history. She also broke the Sun Belt Tournament record with 15 3-pointers over three games. She was named to the All-Tournament Team, All-Sun Belt Second Team and finished with a 3-point percentage of .364. She was second on the Little Rock roster in steals and assists.
 
FUN AND JAMES
Shanity James, the lone fourth-year senior on the Little Rock roster in 2015-16, will have high hopes for her last season with the team. Little Rock's leading rebounder in 2014-15, she averaged 6.9 boards per game. Her scoring was in double figures for the year, reaching 10.7 points per game at season's end. She scored in double figures in 20 out of 33 games for the Trojans and had the most blocks on the roster.
 
NATIONALLY RANKED DEFENSE
Allowing just 51.5 points per game overall, Little Rock finished the 2014-15 season third in the nation in scoring defense. In Sun Belt only games, the Trojans gave up an impressive 47.8 points per game, 7.4 points fewer than second-place UT Arlington's 55.2 points per game allowed. The Trojans' third-place finish in that stat category was the best in program history.
 
CHALLENGING SCHEDULE AHEAD
The 2015-16 non-conference slate for Little Rock may be among the most challenging in the nation. Little Rock is set to play four teams from major conferences: LSU, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Texas. Three of those four teams are ranked in the preseason top 25. Of the Trojans' nine non-conference opponents, five made the NCAA Tournament in 2014-15 while two more reached the Women's NIT. The nine opponents won 58 percent of their games last year.
 
HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
Little has had an incredible home-court advantage over the last two seasons, going 13-1 each year for a .929 winning percentage. The Trojans were also 9-0 at home in conference play in 2014-15, finishing their Sun Belt slate undefeated at home. The team has done this four times in its history now under Joe Foley, going 9-0 in 2007-08, 2009-10, 2013-14 and 2014-15. Overall at the Jack Stephens Center, Little Rock is 126-22, a winning percentage of .851. The Trojans last lost a home conference game in January 2013, a streak of 24 straight wins.
 
FOLEY'S SUN BELT GREATNESS
In his 12 completed years at Little Rock with continued excellence, Joe Foley is climbing the rankings of the best coaches in Sun Belt Conference history. Foley now has 140 Sun Belt victories, the second-most in league history. The only other coach ahead of Foley for Sun Belt wins is Arkansas State's Brian Boyer with 153 and counting. Boyer, though, has had four extra years to pile up those 13 extra wins. Foley is averaging 11.7 league wins per year while Boyer has only 9.6.
 
LOUISIANA NATIVES
While hosting LSU on Wednesday, Little Rock will have three Louisiana natives on its roster. Junior Kaitlyn Pratt hails from New Orleans while freshman Kiara Scott is from Houma and freshman Deja McKinney is from Ville Platte.
 
CAREER NUMBERS WATCH
vs. Tulane:

• Shanity James recorded her 400th career free throw attempt.
• Kaitlyn Pratt scored her 350th point.
• Alexius Dawn moved up to ninth all-time at Little Rock for made 3-pointers.

Coming soon:

• Shanity James is one block away from tying for sixth all-time and four away from fifth all-time in Trojan history.
• Keanna Keys will reach 250 points with 4 more.
• Alexius Dawn is one rebound shy of 100 in her Little Rock career.

 
UP NEXT
The Trojans are back on the road next week, heading to Tulsa, Okla., for a game against Oral Roberts. The Golden Eagles will be ready for the Trojans and a 7 p.m. tipoff.