George Washington University Athletics
Women's Hoops Hosts Defending A-10 Champs Charlotte Saturday
1/15/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 15, 2010
GW vs. Charlotte Notes 
| | GW All-Access
WASHINGTON - The George Washington women's basketball team welcomes the defending Atlantic 10 champion Charlotte 49ers to Charles E. Smith Center Saturday at 2:00 pm.
GW (3-11) fell to 0-2 in A-10 play for the first time since the 1986-87 season with a 59-51 loss at Rhode Island Tuesday, its first loss in four games at The Ryan Center and first defeat in Kingston since Feb. 1996. Sophomores Tiana Myers (14) and Sara Mostafa (12) and rookie Shi-Heria Shipp (13) combined for 39 points on 13-of-30 shooting, but the rest of the team totaled 12 points on 5-of-20 shooting.
GW held Rhode Island to an opponent-worst 33.3 percent shooting Tuesday, the sixth opponent to shoot below 40 percent against the Colonials. However, GW surrendered a season-worst 21 offensive rebounds in allowing 17 second-chance points, the fourth-highest total allowed this season.
The Colonials scoring margin through their first seven games was -16.9 points per game in posting a 2-5 mark. GW is 1-6 over its last seven games, but with a scoring margin of -6.6 points per game, with 6-of-7 games decided by nine points or fewer.
Three of the four meetings between the Colonials and 49ers have been decided by five points or less, with the exception coming in the teams' most recent meeting at Smith Center, which was won by GW, 76-54, in Jan. 2008. Last season, GW guard Yolanda Lavender had a game-tying basket at the buzzer waived off for being released late in a 59-57 loss in Charlotte. The Colonials trailed by nine, 56-47, with 3:44 remaining, but closed within a possession of the lead with a 10-3 run over the next three minutes. Lavender's banked-in runner as time expired was waived off and not reviewed.
GW head coach Mike Bozeman coached both sophomore Tiana Myers and Charlotte senior Ashley Spriggs as teammates at Bishop McNamara High School.
The defending Atlantic 10 champion Charlotte 49ers (8-8, 1-1 A-10) have split their first two conference games, losing at Duquesne, 70-68, in double overtime last Saturday before rebounding with a 69-60 home victory over La Salle Wednesday.
Charlotte lost five of its first six games, including a pair while rooming with GW at the Junkanoo Jam in the Bahamas in late November, but responded with four straight wins and has since won seven in its last 10 games.
49ers' third-year head coach Karen Aston does not go very deep into her 14-player roster. Charlotte's top five players average at least 26.5 minutes and 48.6 points, or nearly 80 percent of the team's offensive output. Charlotte's top five accounted for 57 of its 69 points in Wednesday's victory against La Salle, with Shannon McCallum and Kendria Holmes leading with 13 apiece. The 49ers combatted 20 turnovers by turning 25 giveaways from the Explorers into 23 points. UNCC also shot 51.1 percent from the field and held a 32-12 edge in points in the paint.
McCallum, last year's A-10 Sixth Player of the Year, paces the 49ers in scoring (11.2 ppg), rebounding (6.5 rpg), steals (2.2 spg) and blocks (0.9 bpg). Aysha Jones, a second team All-Atlantic 10 selection last season, is second on the team with 10.1 points per game and team-best 2.6 assists per game.
