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Virginia Hosts No. 9 Duke on Senior Night Thursday
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CHARLOTTESVILLE – The Virginia women’s basketball team hosts No. 9 Duke on Thursday (Feb. 24) at 7 p.m. at John Paul Jones Arena. It is Senior Night and seniors Jayna Hartig (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) and Paulisha Kellum (Upper Marlboro, Md.) will be honored prior to the game.
Hartig and Kellum are both captains this season and have collectively won more than 100 games while members of the Cavalier program.
The game will air live locally on WINA 1070 AM with Jay James (play-by-play), Myron Ripley (analyst) and Larry Johnson (statistician) calling the contest. That audio broadcast is available on the Internet with a subscription to V Pass at VirginiaSports.com.
Virginia (15-13, 4-8 ACC) has won two of its last three games, earning victories at NC State (Feb. 10) and at then-No. 11 Maryland (Feb. 13) before falling to Boston College in its last outing (Feb. 20).
The Cavaliers are currently in eighth place in the ACC standings with two regular-season games left. The regular-season concludes Sunday (Feb. 27) with a trip to in-state rival Virginia Tech.
For Virginia, Ataira Franklin (Bowie, Md.) has continued to assert herself as one of the top freshman in the Atlantic Coast Conference. In addition to leading the league in 3-point field goal percentage (29-for-61, 48 percent), she leads UVa in its 12 conference games by averaging 12.5 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.
Franklin has scored in double digits in six-consecutive contests and was named the ACC Rookie of the Week for her performances against Florida State (16 points), NC State (18 points, 10 rebounds) and Maryland (11 points, eight rebounds).
In conference-only games, Franklin’s 20 3-pointers on 39 attempts (52 percent) rank her second in the ACC in 3-point field goal percentage.
The Blue Devils (24-3, 10-2 ACC) are coming off a 90-40 win over Virginia Tech on Sunday (Feb. 20). Duke was picked to win the Atlantic Coast Conference in the preseason poll.
Duke’s leading scorer is Jasmine Thomas (14.7 points per game). Karima Christmas adds 9.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game, followed by Chelsea Gray’s 8.7 points per game.
Joanne P. McCallie is in her fourth season at the helm of the Blue Devils and has a 106-25 record there. In her 19-year coaching career, McCallie has compiled a 422-173 record.
Virginia leads the all-time series with Duke, 32-29, but the Blue Devils have been victorious in each of the last 17 meetings. The last Virginia win in the series was on Jan. 30, 2000 (61-49 at U-Hall in Charlottesville). Last season, UVa fell at Cameron Indoor Stadium by a score of 83-65.