Women's Basketball | 3/6/2017 5:28:00 PM

NEW ORLEANS, La. – The Georgia Southern women's basketball team will take the court to face Arkansas State in the first round of the Sun Belt Tournament on Tuesday night. The Eagles finished the regular season with a record 13-16 overall, 9-9 in conference play and earned a sixth place ranking in the conference. GS will match up against eleventh-ranked Arkansas State, who completed their regular season with a 6-24 overall record, 4-14 in conference action. The two teams will tip off inside Lakefront Arena down in New Orleans at 8:30 p.m. EST on Tuesday. ESPN3 and the Georgia Southern Sports Network will broadcast the game live.
 
GAME SNAPSHOT
Georgia Southern vs. Arkansas State
Tuesday, March 7   |  8:30 p.m. EST   |   Lakefront Arena (New Orleans, La.)
Live Video (ESPN3) |  Live Audio (GS Sports Network) |  Live Stats 

SCOUTING THE RED WOLVES
The Eagles and Red Wolves faced off in regular season play just last week, where GS earned a 84-76 victory down in Jonesboro. That win was the first time Georgia Southern had defeated Arkansas State in program history, but the Red Wolves still own a 5-1 record over the Eagles.
 
Head coach Brian Boyer took over Arkansas State's program in 1999 and has since guided the Red Wolves to seven appearances in the Women's National Invitation Tournament and three SBC regular-season championships, including the outright regular season crown in 2013-14 and 2015-16. Boyer possesses the most conference wins by a coach in the Sun Belt Conference in both the men's and women's game. He is the longest tenured active basketball coach in the conference and has also coached more games than any basketball coach (men's or women's) in Arkansas State history.

The Red Wolves, who won the Sun Belt Conference regular season outright in 2015-16, graduated five seniors in the offseason and have struggled this season as a result. Arkansas State finished out the regular season with an overall record of 13-16, 4-14 in conference play. Arkansas State finished 11th place in the conference, only preceding University of Louisiana Monroe. The team has been averaging 60.2 points per game, but are giving up an average of 71.7 points per game themselves. From the field, Arkansas State is shooting 36.3% (633-1743), and is making an average of 5.6 3-pointers per game.

Leading in overall points for the Red Wolves is Dominique Oliver, who has 318 points on the year, and averages 10.6 points per game. Oliver is also a team leader in assists, averaging a total of 2.9 per game. Not far behind in points is Jada Ford, who leads the team in points per game, averaging 12.4. Ford is also shooting 35.9% from the field (74-206).  Leading in the 3-point category is Brittany Fowler, shooting 41.9% (62-148) with an average of 2.1 per game.

LAST TIME OUT (L, 62-63 vs. Georgia State)
The Georgia Southern women's basketball team (13-16, 9-9 SBC) dropped a heartbreaker to rival Georgia State (12-17, 8-10 SBC) on Saturday afternoon to close out regular season play. The Eagles and Panthers kept it close until the final buzzer inside of the Georgia State Sports Arena, changing leads a total of ten times and only being able to extend the largest lead of the game to a mere eight points. Georgia State was able to capitalize on second-chance points and sink timely shots late in the game to defeat the Eagles, 63-62.

Senior Angel McGowan led the Eagles with 20 total points on the day, including a clutch three-pointer with only 16 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. McGowan also led the team in rebounds with eight, and totaled three steals on the day. Freshman Alexis Brown shot an outstanding 4-6 from three-point range and scored 14 points for GS. Patrice Butler added 13 points on the day and tallied five rebounds. Heading into today's matchup, Butler had grabbed a total of 499 career rebounds between her time at Furman and GS. Her five today allowed her to break through the 500-mark and extend her career total to 504.

Makeba Ponder carried the Panthers, scoring 20 total points, 12 of which came from beyond the three-point arch. Ponder was able to sink five timely three-pointers in the second half to propel the Panthers to the win. Freshman Jada Lewis contributed 17 points and three assists while Haley Gerrin led State from down low with a total of eight rebounds.  
 
NEXT UP
The winner of the first round game between Georgia Southern vs. Arkansas State will face Troy on Thursday evening. For all updated tournament information throughout the week, visit the Sun Belt page here.



The 2017 Sun Belt Conference Men's and Women's Basketball Championships are scheduled for a week of March Madness in the Big Easy.  New Orleans will once again be home to the two championships that will take place at Lakefront Arena from March 7-12 and ticket books can now be purchased from your our ticket office.  For more information, visit the Sun Belt Conference's championship central websites - Men's Championship – Women's Championship – and be sure to follow the @FunBelt on social media - @SunBelt.

Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. Fans can purchase tickets to Georgia Southern Athletics events by visiting GSEagles.com/Tickets.