No. 24 Virginia Hosts Clemson Thursday Night at JPJA

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CHARLOTTESVILLE – The 24th-ranked Virginia women’s basketball team hosts Clemson Thursday night in John Paul Jones Arena for an Atlantic Coast Conference contest. Tip-off is 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast over the airwaves on WINA 1070 in the Charlottesville area with Jay James (play-by-play), Myron Ripley (color analyst) and Larry Johnson (statistician) calling the action. Live statistics and live audio (V Pass) are available at VirginiaSports.com.

Virginia (15-6, 4-3 ACC) is coming off of a 64-57 loss at Wake Forest on Sunday, Jan. 31. Freshman Lexie Gerson (Fort Washington, Pa.), who started her fifth-straight game for the Cavaliers, tallied a career-high 15 points and was UVa’s leading scorer against the Demon Deacons. For the year, Gerson is averaging 4.7 points per game but she has had three-straight games of scoring at least 10 points.

ACC Preseason Player of the Year and Associated Press Preseason All-American Monica Wright (Woodbridge, Va.) scored 13 points for Virginia, snapping a streak of five-consecutive 20-point games.

In 21 games this season, Wright has 13 games of 20 points or more and four 30+ point games. Her 39 points at Boston College on Jan. 21 tied for the second-highest total in school history (the UVa school record is 48 points) and is the highest scoring game by an ACC player this year.

She leads the team by averaging 22.0 points and 6.8 rebounds per game. Her scoring average leads the ACC and ranks No. 8 in the nation. With 3.8 steals per game, Wright leads the conference in that category and is third in the nation.

Virginia’s all-time leading scorer, Wright needs 18 points to pass North Carolina’s Ivory Latta (2003-07; 2,285 points) for fifth place on the ACC’s all-time scoring list.

Sophomores Chelsea Shine (Wayne, Pa.) and Whitny Edwards (Charlotte, N.C.) rank second and third on the team in scoring with 8.0 and 7.7 ppg, respectively.

Clemson (11-12, 2-5 ACC) is coming off of back-to-back league wins over Boston College (68-55) and NC State (69-56). The Tigers are led by Lele Hardy’s 13.6 points per game and 8.5 rebounds per game.

Clemson head coach Cristy McKinney is in her fifth season and has compiled a 57-87 record with the Tigers. Her career record stands at 273-226.

Virginia leads the all-time series with Clemson, 35-28, including an 18-10 advantage in Charlottesville and six-consecutive wins. The last Tiger victory was on Jan. 25, 2004 (60-56 in Clemson, S.C.)

Following Thursday’s game vs. Clemson, Virginia hits the road for two games – Feb. 8 at Maryland and Feb. 11 at Miami.