Women's Basketball Heads to Navy for Two-Game Series

BROADCAST UPDATE: DUE TO AN INTERNAT OUTAGE, SUNDAY'S GAME AT NAVY WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE LIVE ON ESPN+. FOR IN-GAME UPDATES AND HIGHLIGHTS, PLEASE CHECK @AU_WBASKETBALL ON TWITTER, AND NAVY'S LIVE STATS PAGE HERE.

SCHEDULE CHANGE: IN CONSULTATION WITH LEAGUE OFFICIALS AND NAVY, THE AU WOMEN'S BASKETBALL ON SATURDAY, JAN. 16, WAS RESCHEDULED TO BE PLAYED AT NAVY STARTING AT 3 PM.

Game 3 ·  American (0-2 PL) at Navy (0-4, 0-0 PL)
Saturday, January 16 · 3 p.m. · Annapolis, Md. (Alumni Hall)
Broadcast: ESPN+ |  International Stream

Game 4 ·  American (0-2 PL) at Navy (0-4, 0-0 PL)
Sunday, January 17 · 3 p.m. · Annapolis, Md. (Alumni Hall)
Broadcast: ESPN+ |  International Stream

WASHINGTON - The American University women's basketball team returns to action this weekend (January 16-17), at Navy after opening the 2021 season at Lehigh on Saturday, Jan. 9, and Monday, Jan. 11. Both games will tip off at 3 p.m. in Alumni Hall.

LAST TIME OUT

The Eagles put up back-to-back 70-point performances to open the season, but still fell to Lehigh on Saturday, Jan. 9, (79-70) and Monday, Jan. 11 (89-71).
Junior Jade Edwards left little question as to why she was selected to the Preseason All-Patriot League Team. The Chicago, Ill., native opened with a team-high 16 points on Saturday before smashing through her career-highs on Monday with 31 points and 13 rebounds. Edwards also put up back-to-back career-highs with five steals in each outing, and currently ties for the No. 1 spot in Division I rankings with her 5.0 steals per game average.
Freshman Ivy Bales also had a solid season, and career, debut. Bales helped pace the squad with 10 points in her 30 minutes of play on Saturday, followed by a five-point performance in 18 minutes on Monday. She averaged 4.0 rpg and 2.0 apg in her first two collegiate outings.
Junior Taylor Brown also added a double-figure effort with 11 points on Monday while classmate Emily Fisher posted 10 points. Senior Indeya Sanders also had a 10-point performance on Saturday.
Although the Eagles shot well from the paint in both games, hitting 28 points off 46.3 percent (25-54) total shooting on Saturday and 42 points off 43.1 percent (28-65) on Monday, they struggled from the perimeter. AU went 6-for-16 from long range on Saturday and was held to only 1 of 12 on Monday while the Mountain Hawks hit 13-for-31 on Saturday before tying both the single-game program and Patriot League records on Monday with 16-for-36 from beyond the arc.

SERIES HISTORY

After sweeping the Mids last season with a 3-0 record, including a Patriot League Tournament First Round victory, American leads the 59-game series, 36-23.
Both teams lead on their respective home floors - the Eagles have a 23-5 edge in Bender Arena while Navy is 17-11 in Alumni Hall.
In fact, Navy is one of only four teams in the Patriot League that hold a winning record on their home court, along with Holy Cross (13-7), Boston University (5-4), and Bucknell (13-12).
The Eagles enter the weekend with a six-game win streak under their belts. The last time AU fell to Navy was in Annapolis on Feb. 28, 2018, (76-49) right before American made a historic postseason run into NCAA Tournament, including a redeeming 58-49 win over the Mids to claim the Patriot League title.
Since head coach Megan Gebbia took the reins in 2013, American has only lost to Navy four times, all in Annapolis.

JOINING A NEW FAMILY

The 2020-21 season will mark another milestone for the Patriot League, after the conference signed a multi-year agreement with ESPN to make ESPN+ the new home for all conference events.
Fans can watch all of American's home events on ESPN+ with a subscription - either $5.99 a month or $59.99 per year. Fans can also subscribe to the service as part of the Disney Bundle for just $12.99 per month.

2021 LOOKING A LITTLE DIFFERENT...

Due to COVID-19, Patriot League basketball is going to look a little different this year. All teams will play limited schedule with the league broken into three mini-conferences - North (Army, Boston U., Colgate, Holy Cross); Central (Bucknell, Lafayette, Lehigh); and South (AMERICAN, Loyola Md., Navy).
American's four match-ups against Loyola and Navy in January and February will determine the divisional standings and subsequent seedings in this year's PL Tournament.
AU will also have two extra games against the Greyhounds in late-February, along with a set of games against Bucknell, Lafayette, and Lehigh that will not count toward the final standings.
Eight teams will advance into the Patriot League Tournament instead of the usual 10. The top-three seeds will be awarded to the mini-conference winners, and the second-place finishers will be seeded 4-6. The final two seeds will go to the best overall win percentage against conference opponents.

THE STARTING FIVE

American opened its season last weekend with a pair of losses at Lehigh on Jan. 9 (79-70) and Jan. 11 (71-89). This is the fourth time the Eagles have averaged over 70 points in the first two outings since Gebbia took the reins, and the seventh time since 2000.
Junior Jade Edwards proved why she was selected to the Preseason All-PL Team on Monday, as she led the Eagles with career-highs after scoring 31 points alongside 13 rebounds and five steals. Good for the first AU double-double of the season, she also earned the team's first PL Athlete of the Week nod for 2021 on Tuesday.
Edwards, the top returning scorer for the conference, averaged 5.0 steals per game to tie for No. 1 in the Division I rankings after the team's opening weekend. She also ranks 12th in Division I and leads the league in scoring with 23.5 ppg, and is second in the PL with 8.5 rpg.
Senior Indeya Sanders, the league's top returner in assists after averaging 4.2 per game in 2019-20, currently sits atop the league rankings alongside Boston's Katie Nelson with 5.5 apg. She also ranks fourth for assist/turnover ratio (2.8). Sanders is currently 35 assists away from tying for 10th in the program record books.
Freshman Ivy Bales had a strong collegiate debut on Saturday, scoring 10 off the bench in her 30 minutes of play. She also added five rebounds, one assist, and one steal. Bales put in another 18 minutes on Monday, scoring five points alongside three rebounds and three assists.

SCOUTING THE MIDSHIPMEN

Although Navy had to postpone its first four Patriot League games, the Mids have already seen some action this season with four nonconference road losses to George Mason, Richmond, William & Mary, and Morgan State in November and December.
Sophie Gatzounas led the Mids in their first stretch of games with 18.5 ppg and 7.8 rpg, including back-to-back +20-point performances to open the season against George Mason (26) and Richmond (20). She currently ranks second in the league for scoring average behind Jade Edwards.
Junior Kolbi Green also had a solid start to the season, although she did not play against Morgan State. Green averaged 11.0 ppg and 4.3 rpg in her first three outings, and sits in second behind Jade Edwards in the league rankings for steals per game (3.3).
Jennifer Coleman, a key returner for Navy this season, made her debut against Morgan State where she led the Mids with 25 pts. and 10 reb.
This is the Patriot League debut for first-year head coach Tim Taylor. Taylor joined the Mids in April after serving on the staffs at North Carolina ('19-20) and Virginia ('00-05, '09-11, '16-18).

THAT FAMILY ATMOSPHERE

Coach Gebbia and her staff hold a couple of unique distinctions in the Patriot League.
Not only does AU have the only all-female coaching staff, the Eagles also boast the most consistent coaching staff in the league.
Associate head coach Tiffany Coll, and assistant coaches Nikki Flores and Emily Stallings all arrived at AU with Gebbia in 2013, making this their eighth season together.
Only Boston's Marisa Moseley (3rd season), Bucknell's Trevor Woodruff (2nd), Holy Cross' Maureen Magarity (1st), and Navy's Tim Taylor (1st) have not had any changes with their assistant coaches during their tenures.
The only assistant coach that tops the eight seasons from Coll, Flores, and Stallings is Glenn Rigney, who has been with Lehigh for 17 years.
Nicole Krusen, the Eagles' director of basketball operations, joined the staff in 2016 - this will be her fifth season.

SHOT BLOCKERS...

Midway through last season, it seemed like Indeya Sanders was poised to become the smallest member of AU's all-time top-ten list for career blocks. At 5'6", she ranked among the leaders in the league after averaging 0.8 per game through most of the season before fading midway through the conference slate.
Sanders closed with a career-high 19 blocks to bring her career total up to 33 - 21 away from tying for 10th in the program record books.
Jade Edwards, though, has taken over that mantle - the 5'10 guard took over as leader for the team last year with 21 blocks on the season and entered her junior campaign with 38 career blocks - 16 away from tying with Sahar Nusseibeh and Stacy Meeker in the No. 10 slot.

MORE RECORDS TO WATCH...

Indeya Sanders is continuing to creep up to the program top-10 list in career assists - her current total of 250 is only 35 away from tying with Nichole Grant for the No. 10 slot. She is currently averaging 2.8 apg in her career, which would put her at 289 after the remaining 14 games of the season.
Jade Edwards already made her mark in the AU record books this season with her 31-point career-high against Lehigh on Monday, Jan. 11. That performance ties for 10th in program history for single-game scoring, and is the first time an Eagle has scored over 30 points in a game since Cecily Carl broke the record with 37 points against Colgate during the 2018-19 season.
If not for the shortened season, Edwards would have been on-pace to hit a pair of major milestones this year with 1,000 career points and 500 career rebounds.
She's currently sitting with 684 points and 373 rebounds and, based off her averages from last season (14.5 ppg, 6.9 rpg), is 22 games away from her 1,000th point and 19 games away from her 500th rebound.

VIRTUAL "PHIL BENDER" ARENA PRESENTED BY GEICO

American University Athletics has announced a new virtual ticket campaign in an effort to sell out Bender Arena this coming basketball season. This new season-long initiative, presented by "TEAM AU" partner GEICO, will challenge Eagles fans and alumni to sell out each seat in Bender Arena for the 2020-21 basketball schedule. The "AU Founder" ticket price of $18.93 commemorates the year AU was founded. Click here to support AU Athletics by buying virtual tickets.

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