Women's Basketball Set for Trip to Beantown

Game 12 · American (8-3, 1-0 PL) at Boston University (6-7, 2-0 PL)
Saturday, January 8 · 1 p.m. ET · Case Gym (Boston, Mass.)

WASHINGTON - The American University women's basketball team (8-3, 1-0 PL) will face its first road opponent of the Patriot League season on Saturday with a trip to Boston University (6-7, 2-0 PL) for a 1 p.m. tip in Case Gym.

THE STARTING FIVE

American went 18 days without a game before opening Patriot League play with a 66-52 win over Colgate in Bender Arena on Wednesday. Senior Jade Edwards posted a team-high 18 points and pulled down six rebounds, including her 500th as an Eagle.
The sophomore class also had a big night, combining for 30 points including five for Riley DeRubbo in her first career start. Kayla Henning added a career-high nine while Ivy Bales also added a career-high six assists to lead the team.
American was one win away from its most successful non-conference run in the Gebbia era. The Eagles closed at 7-3, tying with the 2015 and 2018 championship seasons for most non-conference wins since 2014. Their .700 win percentage, though, was the highest since 2010-11 when AU came into PL play with a 10-4 (.714) record.
Edwards' 500th rebound was the first of two milestones she is poised to reach this season. With her 18 points against the Raiders, she is now only 14 away from becoming the 11th player to reach 500 rebounds and 1,000 points in a career.
This is the ninth season for head coach Megan Gebbia and her staff, all of whom arrived together in 2013 with the exception of director of operations Nicole Krusen, who joined in 2016. Gebbia has already had a historic career at the helm and will look to add to that this year as she sits six wins away from becoming in the winningest coach in program history.

SCOUTING THE TERRIERS

Boston opened the Patriot League season with back-to-back wins over Navy, 82-58, and Loyola Maryland, 64-51.
In their latest win over the Greyhounds, Sydney Johnson paced the Terriers with 18 points and three steals. Caitlin Weimar and Alex Giannaros added 13 points each while Maren Durant and Riley Childs led the team on the boards with 14 rebounds and 13 rebounds, respectively.
Durant also added a team-high five assists and four blocks.
BU is third in the Patriot League with its .346 3-point FG percentage.
Durant and Weimar own two of the top-five spots in the league rankings for blocks per game, averaging 1.5 and 1.2, respectively.
Johnson has led BU in scoring this season with 14.1 ppg alongside her team-high 18 steals.
Weimar is next with 8.9 ppg while Childs and Durant lead on the boards with 7.8 rpg each.
This is the first season for head coach Melissa Graves, who arrived at BU in April after a successful stint at Wake Forest as an assistant coach.

SERIES HISTORY vs. BOSTON UNIVERSITY

American still leads the overall series against BU, 14-7, although the Terriers own a winning record of 6-4 on their home floor.
Boston claimed their last two meetings, both during the Patriot League Tournament and in Boston, in 2020 (46-44) and 2021 (72-51).
Head coach Megan Gebbia is 13-5 against BU since joining the Eagles in 2013-14.

THE LAST TIME WE MET...

For the second consecutive season, AU was knocked out of the Patriot League Tournament in Boston by the Terriers, falling in Case Gym, 72-51.
Three Eagles closed in double-figures, starting with Emily Fisher's 16 points, but AU didn't have a response for Sydney Johnson or Emily Esposito who posted 23 points and 16 points, respectively.
BU entered the game ranked 11th in Division I for FG defense and held the Eagles to their lowest shooting percentage of the season (.340).
American led briefly in the first quarter but couldn't claw its way back after a 26-9 BU run in the second.

#AUWBB vs. THE PATRIOT LEAGUE

American holds a 201-103 (.661) record in Patriot League play, and an overall record of 258-135 (.656) against Patriot League opponents.
Included in that are winning records against each team in the conference with the exception of Holy Cross, who has a five-game advantage over the Eagles.
Head Coach Megan Gebbia has a 93-43 (.684) record in conference play since arriving at AU in 2013-14, and is 13-6 in the Patriot League Tournament, including the program's only two PL titles in 2015 and and 2018.

THE LAST TIME OUT

Despite a slow start to the evening, the Eagles opened the 2022 Patriot League season with a 66-52 win over Colgate in Bender Arena on Wednesday.
Jade Edwards led the team with 18 points and six rebounds, including her 500th in the AU uniform.
Taylor Brown also closed in double-figures for the eighth consecutive game with 13 points to go along with her four boards and team-high four steals.
The sophomore class had a big night for AU, combining for 30 points including five from Riley DeRubbo in her first career start.
Kayla Henning added a career-high nine points while Ivy Bales and Emily Johns posted eight each. Bales also pitched in a career-high six assists to lead the team.
AU closed shooting over 50 percent from the field for the third time this season, hitting a season-high 51.8 percent (29-56).

SO CLOSE...

American fell just one game shy of surpassing the non-conference win record under head coach Megan Gebbia.
The Eagles closed at 7-3 (.700) for the first part of the season after the finale at Howard was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns in Howard's women's basketball program.
AU has had two seven-win non-conference seasons under head coach Megan Gebbia - 2014-15 and 2017-18. In both, the Eagles entered league play at 7-4, including wins over Power Five programs, and closed the season with Patriot League titles.
The Eagles picked up their third Power Five win in the Gebbia era this season with a 69-56 win at Virginia on Dec. 7.
If they had earned an eighth non-conference, it would have been the most wins outside of league play since 2011 (8-6), and the .727 win percentage would have been the best since AU's undefeated run in 1997-98 (10-0).
As it stands, the Eagles' .700 win percentage in the non-conference is the best since 2010-11 (10-4, .714).

SHOOT YOUR SHOT

American leads the Patriot League and ranks 36th in Division I with its .454 field goal percentage.
The Eagles have put in three games shooting 50 percent or higher so far this season - Colgate (.518), George Mason (.511), and Radford (.500).
Only two teams have shot better than AU so far this season - UMBC (.373/.432) and Towson (.429/.449)
American's .447 field goal percentage in the non-conference was the team's highest since Gebbia took the reins in 2013.
Three players are shooting over 50 percent from the field with Jade Edwards (.525), Taylor Brown (.522), and Lauren Stack (.529).

NEXT UP
American will return to Bender on Wednesday to host Holy Cross at 6 p.m. before heading to Lewisburg, Pa., on Sunday to face Bucknell. Sunday's game will begin at 4 p.m. and will be broadcast on the CBS Sports Network.

For the latest on American University Women's Basketball, stay tuned to AUEagles.com and follow the team on Twitter (@AU_WBasketball) and Instagram (@auwbasketball).

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