Game five: Women at Virginia

The #14/13 women's team travels to Charlottesville to face Virginia (1-0) tonight at the John Paul Jones Arena. GW (1-0) used 20 points and six rebounds from Kimberly Beck to win its season opener 79-59 at Maryland-Baltimore County on Friday night. Beck became the 23rd player in program history to reach the 1,000-point plateau.

The Cavaliers are coming off of a 19-15 season which resulted in a second consecutive trip to the WNIT, where they lost to Wisconsin in the quarterfinals. Coach Debbie Ryan's squad was picked to finish sixth out of 12 teams in the ACC preseason poll. Ryan is entering her 31st season at the helm of a program that has reached the NCAA Tournament 21 times and has appeared in three Final Fours. Ryan's 652 career victories ranks her eighth among active coaches.

The Wahoos return a talented trio of players in 5-7 senior guard Sharnee Zoll (9.7 points, 6.2 assists per game a year ago), who is 159 assists shy of tying Dawn Staley's career assists record, 6-1 junior forward Lyndra Littles (17.3 points, 8.8 rebounds), and 5-11 sophomore guard Monica Wright (15.1 points, six rebounds). The Cavaliers did not receive any votes in either preseason poll, but were put at #25 in ESPN.com's edition.

Virginia beat Longwood 62-49 at home on Saturday night. The frontcourt tandem of 6-3 junior Aisha Mohammed (16 points, 10 rebounds) and 5-11 sophomore Enonge Stovall (10 points, 10 rebounds) led the way, as the Cavaliers opened up a 17-point halftime lead and never looked back.

This will be the 11th meeting between these two programs; Virginia is 10-0. The last meeting came on November 18, 2005 in the season opener for both teams. The Cavaliers built a 13-point halftime lead en route to a 66-53 win at the Smith Center. Zoll had 11 points and eight assists in that contest, while Beck had a team-high 13 points and six assists. The Colonials are 0-7 in Charlottesville.

The Cavaliers are a talented team on their way back up after a couple of disappointing seasons. Expect this one to be close late, but I have a feeling coach Joe McKeown will find a way to get his first career win against Virginia.

Greg Shapiro and I have the call for WRGW with Julian Gompertz and Ben Toder handling production duties. You can listen here starting at 6.40 p.m.

Game notes: McKeown and Ryan have combined for 1,067 career victories...McKeown is 0-4 against Ryan...GW was 15-3 away from the Smith Center last season...Sarah-Jo Lawrence is 44 points shy of having 1,000 for her career...McKeown is 17 wins shy of having 500 for his career.

Starting lineups and other notes to follow from the John Paul Jones Arena once we get closer to tip-off. Shapiro, Gompertz, and I will be blogging all night, so please check back later.

Update, 12.00 a.m. - Okay, so there was no blogging tonight. We had tremendous technical difficulties that were almost entirely out of our control, and we were concerned about the broadcast the entire time, so we had to abandon posting. Here were the starting lineups:

GW
G - Kimberly Beck (5-8 senior from Fairburn, GA)
G - Sarah-Jo Lawrence (5-11 senior from Rhoadesville, VA)
F - Whitney Allen (5-11 senior from Woodbridge, VA)
F - Antelia Parrish (6-0 junior from Washington, DC)
C - Jessica Adair (6-4 junior from Washington, DC)

Virginia
G - Sharnee Zoll (5-7 senior from Marlboro, NJ)
G - Paulisha Kellum (5-8 sophomore from Upper Marlboro, MD)
G - Monica Wright (5-11 sophomore from Woodbridge, VA)
G - Enonge Stovall (5-11 sophomore from Philadelphia, PA)
C - Aisha Mohammed (6-3 junior from Lagos, Nigeria)

The Colonials got off to a hot start, leading 10-1 early on, but faltered on both ends of the court and trailed by as many as eight in both halves. However, Adair (12 points, seven rebounds) came alive in the second half and absolutely dominated on both ends of the court for a good stretch, Parrish (18 points, 10 rebounds) had her first career double-double, Beck (14 points, five assists) knocked down some clutch shots down the stretch, Lawrence (14 points) played solidly in front of a large contingent of friends and family members, and Allen (10 points, five assists) was a force on both ends of the court.

While Virginia is a team to watch out for in the ACC, the Colonials were lucky to escape with a victory tonight. I think the most concerning stat for McKeown has to be bench points, as Virginia held a 31-2 advantage. While it's nice to have all five starters in double figures, it's going to take more from the bench than two Lisa Steele free throws for this team to realize its potential.

In the postgame, McKeown said he has to handle the team carefully with tip-off against Kentucky less than 48 hours away. After such a physical game against the Cavaliers, how will GW respond at home on Wednesday? Only time will tell.

We'll post the audio from the postgame press conferences when we get back to D.C. tomorrow. Again, our apologies for tonight's technical difficulties. All of the issues have been resolved, so there shouldn't be a problem for the rest of the season.

We will be back to normal on Wednesday for the doubleheader. Thanks for stopping by.

Update, 3.13 p.m. - Postgame audio:

Ryan

Beck, Lawrence, and Parrish

McKeown