Tournament Guide

Women's Bracket

NORFOLK, Va. — The NSU women’s basketball team, the No. 11 seed in the 2010 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference basketball tournament, will take on No. 6 Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday at 4 p.m. at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The Spartans ended the regular season with a 79-59 loss to regular-season champion North Carolina A&T on Thursday. Tyisha Bridges (Greensboro, N.C.) led the Spartan effort with 12 points. Both teams shot evenly from the floor, but the difference was A&T’s performance at the free-throw line. The Lady Aggies shot 42.2 percent (27-of-64) compared to the Spartans’ 43.4 percent (23-of-53), but A&T hit 20 of their 23 free throws, while NSU went 11-of-15 from the line.

On the season, NSU is averaging 55.4 points and 34.4 rebounds per game. Sophomore guard Whitney Long (Raleigh, N.C.) leads the team in scoring at 10.0 points per game, while freshman center Batavia Owens (Norfolk, Va.) leads the defense with 5.5 rebounds per game.

Ross Gordon will call all of the Spartans’ tournament games on WNSB 91.1 FM beginning approximately 15 minutes before the tip off of each game. NSU’s first-round game against Bethune-Cookman tips off at 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

NSU leads the all-time series with B-CU 11-10. The teams met once during the 2009-10 season with the Lady Wildcats beating the Spartans 79-61 in Daytona Beach, Fla. on Jan. 9. B-CU won last season’s only meeting 80-65 on Feb. 7 at Echols Hall. The last time the Spartans beat the Lady Wildcats was on Feb. 5, 2007 when NSU won 77-53 at Echols Hall.

NSU and B-CU have met twice before in the MEAC Tournament with NSU coming out on top each time. The Spartans won 69-62 in the first round of the 1999 tournament and posted a 60-51 first-round victory in 2005.