Women's Basketball Looks To Remain Perfect In Its Home Opener

Morgan State (1-1) @ St. Bonaventure (3-0)
Nov. 20 | 1 P.M. | Reilly Center (5,480)
Notes: Morgan State | A-10 | St. Bonaventure
Twitter Updates: @Go_Bonnies | #Bonnies

For the fourth time in nine days, the St. Bonaventure women's basketball team will take to the court as it opens up the home portion of its 2011-12 schedule with a contest against Morgan State after a season-commencing three-game road trip.

The Bonnies will be in search of their seventh straight home-opening victory, and are 8-3 in 12th-year head coach Jim Crowley's tenure in home openers. The club will also be looking to avenge last season's loss in Baltimore to the Lady Bears as Morgan State turned 17 Bona turnovers into 26 points in a 74-65 defeat of the Bonnies.

This will be the second straight week in which Bonaventure will have just one day off in-between games. The Bonnies played last Saturday in New York City against St. John's before turning around and playing in Buffalo Monday against Canisius. On Friday, they played at West Virginia and will be back in action today against Morgan State.

The contest with Morgan State will be the last of four straight rematches of games played last year to start the 2011-12 campaign for the Bonnies. In those four games last year, Bonaventure went 1-3 collectively against St. John's, Canisius, West Virginia and Morgan State. The Bonnies have already avenged their losses to St. John's and West Virginia this season, and will be looking to do the same to Morgan State.

Morgan State turned the ball over 27 times in its last game against George Washington, but still was able to pull out a 73-68 win Wednesday night. The Lady Bears are averaging 21 turnovers a game after losing their top five scorers from a team which went 17-15 last year en route to making its first-ever postseason appearance in the WNIT.

St. Bonaventure head coach Jim Crowley is now just four wins shy of 200 for his career. Meanwhile, Morgan State head man Donald Beasley is six victories shy of 100 for his career.

Bonaventure is coming off its second win of the year over a BIG EAST team as the Bonnies claimed their first-ever victory in Morgantown Friday night over West Virginia, 56-48. Coupled with a triumph over then-No. 25 St. John's last Saturday, it is the first time in program history a team has defeated two BIG EAST schools in the same season. The Brown and White will face one more BIG EAST foe in its non-conference slate as they battle Villanova on Dec. 29.

In the contest against the Mountaineers, senior Jessica Jenkins recorded a game-high 23 points, and in the process became the 19th member of SBU's 1,000 Point Club. The Marion, Ohio native scored 11 straight points as part of a game-deciding 17-3 Bona run to turn a 33-32 WVU lead into a 49-36 SBU lead. She now has 1,007 career points.

With the win in Morgantown, St. Bona handed WVU head coach Mike Carey just his fourth career loss in home non-conference games. Carey was previously 61-3 in such contests.

Scouting Morgan State
~The Lady Bears welcome seven newcomers, including six freshmen, to this year's roster, and they have just two seniors on the club

~ MSU is 7-23 all-time against Atlantic 10 Conference schools

~ Morgan State was picked to finish 5th in the 13-team Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC)

~ The Lady Bears will start the year with 15 straight road games; they will not host a non-conference game and their first home contest of the season will come on Jan. 14 against Norfolk State

Next Up
St. Bonaventure will have a week off before it hosts Delaware and one of the best players in women's college basketball in Elena Delle Donne. Delle Donne has scored 73 points in two games already this year, including 40 in an upset of No. 11/12 Penn State Friday night. The consensus 2008 Naismith National High School Basketball Player of the Year, she committed to the University of Connecticut before transferring to her home state of Delaware. Tipoff next Sunday is slated for 1 p.m. from the Reilly Center.