EVANSVILLE, Ind. – University of Southern Indiana Women's Basketball gets back on the road Tuesday when the Screaming Eagles travel to Morehead State University for a 4 p.m. CT contest.
Tuesday's game can be seen live with a subscription to ESPN+ and heard on 95.7 FM The Spin (
http://957thespin.com).
Southern Indiana (18-6, 13-1) looks to claim the outright Ohio Valley Conference regular season title Tuesday with a win at Morehead State. USI already clinched a share of the OVC regular season crown with its 88-51 win on Saturday at Little Rock. Plus, the Screaming Eagles locked up the No. 1 seed at next month's OVC Tournament at Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana due to a head-to-head tiebreaker as things currently sit in the OVC standings. USI would be among a few programs in NCAA Women's Basketball to win a conference title during a reclassification period from Division II to Division I. Most recently, California Baptist University won the Western Athletic Conference regular season in 2020-21.
USI is currently in the midst of a four-game road stretch. Southern Indiana has won its first two games of the current road swing - 73-67 last Thursday at the University of Tennessee at Martin and 88-51 on Saturday at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The Screaming Eagles have won four in a row going back to February 8. USI is 3-1 away from home this month.
In the victory at Little Rock, Southern Indiana had the offense rolling from the opening tip, jumping out to a 15-0 lead and outscoring the Trojans 46-22 in the first half. USI flirted with the program record books with its shooting performance on Saturday. The Screaming Eagles shot for above 65 percent from the floor and over 72 percent from three-point percentage. Both percentages were a few ticks short of program records but were program highs since USI jumped to Division I.
In Saturday's win, sophomore guard
Ali Saunders (Depauw, Indiana) finished off a recognizable week of scoring with a team-high 18 points on 7-10 shooting with four three-point makes against the Trojans. Saunders also set a new career mark with eight assists. Freshman forward
Chloe Gannon (Manchester, Tennessee) also wrapped up a notable week with 16 points off the bench at Little Rock. Senior forward
Meredith Raley (Haubstadt, Indiana) returned to the starting lineup with 12 points, while fellow senior forward
Madi Webb (Bedford, Indiana) added 10 points.
Preceding Saunders' 18 points on Saturday, the guard posted 20 points last Thursday in the road win at UT Martin. In the last three games, Saunders has tallied 51 points - 17 per game - on 73 percent (19-26) shooting from the field. She has also connected from three at 76 percent (13-17). Additionally, Saunders has racked up 18 assists – six per contest – in the last three games. Within the OVC, Saunders is second in assists per game and first in assist-to-turnover ratio in league play.
On the season, junior guard
Vanessa Shafford (Linton, Indiana) paces USI with 13.9 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. Raley and Webb are averaging 12.4 and 10.5 points, respectively. As a team, Southern Indiana is posting 71.3 points on an OVC-best 45 percent shooting. USI's defense has held the opposition to a conference-best 36.6 percent.
Morehead State (13-12, 8-6) enters Tuesday looking to keep pace in the top half of the OVC standings to earn a bye at the OVC Tournament in a few weeks. Morehead State is in a four-way tie for third place. Last week, Morehead State split its two matchups against Little Rock and UT Martin, winning by three against the Trojans before falling 70-54 at UT Martin. The Eagles are led by senior guard Veronica Charles, who averages 13.4 points, 4.2 assists, and 2.6 steals per outing. Morehead State averages 66.1 points on 39.6 percent shooting.
Tuesday will be the second meeting of the season and the fourth all-time meeting between USI and Morehead State. Southern Indiana has won two in a row in the series, including last time out on January 20 when the Screaming Eagles came out victorious at home, 70-55. In that game, Raley scored 18 points, Shafford and Webb had 14, and Saunders recorded 11 points for the Screaming Eagles.
Following Tuesday's game, USI is set to travel to Macomb, Illinois on Saturday for a 1 p.m. tilt against Western Illinois to conclude the four-game road swing.
