The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Stetson
No. 2 Women's Basketball preview: Stetson
11.10.2017 | Women's Basketball
Texas opens its 44th season of Women's Basketball on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the Erwin Center.
No. 2/6 Texas Longhorns (0-0) vs. Stetson Hatters (1-0)
Time: Sunday, November 12, 2017 | 1 p.m. CT
Location: Austin, Texas | Frank Erwin Center (16,540)
TV: Longhorn Network (Fran Harris, Nell Fortner)
Radio: 105.3 FM (Craig Way, Kathy Harston)
Game Notes | WatchESPN | Live Stats | Live Audio | Tickets
AUSTIN, Texas – The No. 2/6 University of Texas women's basketball team opens the 44th season in the program's decorated history on Sunday when it plays host to Stetson. Tip-off in the Frank Erwin Center is slated for 1 p.m. CT and the game will be televised nationally by Longhorn Network.
$3 general admission tickets are available for this game and can be purchased online at TexasSports.com/tickets or on gameday at the box office. The Clear Bag policy will be in effect for all Texas Basketball games this season at the Frank Erwin Center. For more information, click here.
Sunday's game is part of Veterans' Recognition Weekend. A free Longhorn stars and stripes phone wallet will be available to the first 250 fans at a table on the concourse in section 44 of the Erwin Center.
Texas is 32-11 (.744) all-time in season openers and 39-4 (.907) in home openers. Under head coach Karen Aston, the Longhorns are 4-1 in season openers and 5-0 in home openers. Texas has opened at home in 13 of the last 15 years.
"I'm excited about playing a Stetson team that was 26-7 last year and 13-1 in league play," Aston said. "I think that they should have been an NCAA Tournament team, but were just unfortunate enough to be in a league that was a one-bid league and they got beat in their conference tournament. Otherwise, we would be looking at an NCAA Tournament team on Sunday."
The Longhorns are coming off a 99-36 exhibition game win against defending NAIA National Champion Oklahoma City University last Sunday. Five Texas players scored in double figures, led by junior Jatarie White's 17 points and nine rebounds. Senior guard Brooke McCarty finished with 16 points, including three three-pointers, three assists and five steals.
Texas video coordinator Jama Sharp played basketball for Stetson from 2011-15. She finished her career as one of only two players in school history with more than 1,000 points, 400 assists and 250 steals.
Texas and Stetson are meeting for the first time in the history of the two programs. The Longhorns also have never met a team in the current alignment of the Atlantic Sun Conference.
Stetson enters Sunday's game with a 1-0 record, having defeated Thomas University 92-41 on Friday afternoon in DeLand, Fla. The Hatters got double-doubles from sophomore forward Kennedi Colclough and junior guard McKenna Beach, as Colclough had 18 points on 7-for-7 shooting with 11 rebounds, while Beach had 15 points and a career-high 10 assists.
QUICK NOTES
- Texas women's basketball is set to begin its 44th season of intercollegiate basketball.
- Texas is one of just eight programs in NCAA Division I women's basketball history to reach 1,000 all-time wins. Texas ranks fifth all-time in NCAA history with 1,037 all-time victories.
- The Longhorns have made 30 all-time NCAA Tournament appearances, which is fourth-most of any program in NCAA D-I Women's Basketball history.
- Texas head coach Karen Aston is 114-55 (.675) beginning her sixth season at the helm of the Longhorns. She is the program's second-winningest coach in UT history behind Jody Conradt's 783 victories on the Forty Acres.
- The 2016-17 Longhorns tied the school record for most Big 12 wins in a season at 15. The 2002-03 and 2015-16 squads also posted 15 Big 12 victories.
- Texas has advanced to three consecutive NCAA Sweet 16s for the first time since the 2002, 2003 and 2004 campaigns.
- Over the past two seasons, Texas has earned 14 wins against foes ranked in the Associated Press Top-25.
- Senior guard Brooke McCarty has 181 career three-pointers made, which ranks sixth in school history in that category. She needs to make nine more threes to surpass Heather Schreiber (189 from 2001-05) for fifth place all-time.
- McCarty ranks fourth in program history in three-point percentage at 40.3 percent (181-of-449) and is one of just four players in program history (Jamie Carey, Kat Nash and Vicki Hall are the others) to shoot better than 40 percent from beyond the arc for her career. Current UT assistant Jamie Carey is the school's all-time three-point field goal percentage leader at 41.8 percent.
- Senior guard Ariel Atkins is 26 points away from becoming the 43rd player in program history to join the school's 1,000-point club.
- Atkins ranks fifth in school history in career free-throw percentage at 82.1 percent (197-of-240) and is one of just five players in program annals to shoot better than 82 percent from the line for her career.
