St. Bonaventure Game Notes | Marist Game Notes

The women's basketball team (4-3) returns to action Saturday night when it travels to Marist (4-1) The Red Foxes currently lead the country in fewest turnovers per game (9.6) and are second in assist-turnover ratio. Tip-off is set for 7:30 from McCann Field House.

Saturday Night's Matchup
St. Bonaventure is looking for its second straight win after beating Lafayette 72-63 at home on Wednesday. Marist will be trying to extend its current win streak to five games after losing the first game of the season to St. John's at the Commerce Bank Wildcat Classic in Manhattan, Kan.

Last Time Out
Trailing Lafayette 58-54 with just 6:19 remaining in the game, the Bonnies went on a spirited 12-2 run over the next 3:09 to take a six-point lead that they would not relinquish on their way to a 72-63 victory on Wednesday at the Reilly Center.

Stats That Could Determine A Winner
St. Bonaventure entered this week as the 13th-best free-throw shooting team in the country at 79.4 percent … the Bonnies are also ranked inside the top 50 nationally (out of 333 Division I schools) in scoring defense at 55.4 points per game (49th), fewest turnovers with 16 per outing (48th) and field-goal percentage defense at 34.1 (38th).

Marist is ranked first in the country in turnovers, giving the ball away fewer than 10 times per game (9.6) … the Red Foxes also rank second in America, behind only Connecticut, in assist/turnover ratio (1.88) … Elise Caron is third in the nation with an assist/turnover ratio if 6.67 ... St. Bonaventure freshman CeCe Dixon leads the Bonnies in assist/turnover ratio at 1.56, while redshirt junior Armelia Horton has issued a team-leading 20 assists.

Scouting Marist
-- Marist enters Saturday night's game with a 4-1 record after a 71-60 win against Villanova on Sunday
-- For the fourth straight year, Marist was the unanimous pre-season selection to win the MAAC
-- Senior Erica Allenspach was named the Preseason MAAC Player of the Year
-- Last year the Red Foxes made the NCAA Tournament as a 12 seed before losing in the first round to Georgetown
-- Four of the team's five starters are averaging more than nine points per game
-- The Red Foxes have yet to play a home game this season
-- Marist is currently ranked 9th in Collegeinsider.com's mid-major power rankings

St. Bonaventure vs. Marist
Series Quick Facts
Overall: Marist Leads, 3-1
At St. Bonaventure: Tied, 1-1
At Marist: Marist Leads, 2-0
At Neutral Site: N/A
Most St. Bonaventure Points: 61
Most Marist Points: 62
Fewest St. Bonaventure Points: 45
Fewest Marist Points: 43
Largest St. Bonaventure Margin:  18
Largest Marist Margin: 8

Brian Giorgis is in his ninth season as head coach of the Marist women's basketball team, and is the program's all-time leader in wins. His career record stands at 194-62 and his .758 winning percentage is 11th best among active Division I coaches. In his first eight seasons in Poughkeepsie, Giorgis has been named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Coach of the Year four times - twice outright (2003-04, 2007-08), and a share of the award on two other occasions (2004-05, 2005-06).

Giorgis, a 2010 inductee into the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame, led the program to national prominence in his first eight seasons. Last season, the Red Foxes reached their fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament and their sixth in seven years. Marist also won its seventh consecutive Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season title with a 15-3 mark in the MAAC, and finished two games ahead of the second-place team, Iona.

The Red Foxes went 29-4 in 2008-09 with a 16-2 mark in conference. Marist was ranked as high as 20th in the Associated Press Top 25 that season as well, and was ranked for three weeks. For his efforts, Giorgis was named the Maggie Dixon Coach of the Year by the Met Basketball Writers Association.

All-Time Against The Metro Atlantic
Heading into Saturday night's game, St. Bonaventure is 72-60 all-time against Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference foes. The Bonnies have played Niagara the most, owning a 36-26 series lead following their win over the Purple Eagles earlier this year. The only MAAC members St. Bonaventure has never faced are Saint Peter's, Loyola and Manhattan.

Trend Setters
St. Bonaventure turned the ball over just four times against Lafayette. That total is the lowest by any team in the country so far this year. It also breaks a regular-season program record of six, set last year in a win over George Washington. The program record for turnovers is three, also set last year in the Bonnies' final game of the season in a loss to visiting Northwestern in the second round of the WNIT.

Within the Atlantic 10 Conference, the four turnovers ties St. Bonaventure for the second fewest in the history of the league with Duquesne. Saint Joseph's and Temple share the record with just three giveaways.

Consistently Inconsistent
Chelsea Bowker has either been great for the Bonnies or not so much this year. In five games, the sophomore guard has been held to zero or single-digits points. However in her other two games, including her last game against Lafayette, she has exploded for career-high-tying 16-point performances.

Using Her 'Arm's
Redshirt junior Armelia Horton has broken career highs for assists twice this year already. The Harlem, N.Y. native came into this year with a high water mark of three assists in a game. She broke that mark with a five-assist effort in the Bonnies' win over Niagara on Nov. 24, and then exactly one week later broke that career high with a seven-dish performance in a win over Lafayette Wednesday evening. In her last three games, Horton has issued 14 helpers, while committing just three turnovers.

Don't Foul Them
St. Bonaventure's Jessica Jenkins entered this week shooting 90.5 percent (she is now connecting at a 91.3-percent clip) from the free-throw line, a pace that puts her as the 39th-best free-throw shooter in the country. On the other side of the ball, Marist's Brandy Gang is shooting 90.9 percent from the line, making her the 35th-best free-throw shooter in all of America.

Home Starting To Feel Like Home
In three home games prior to the matchup against Lafayette on Wednesday, junior Megan Van Tatenhove had cracked double figures in points just once, averaging 9.6 points and 5.0 rebounds. However, on Wednesday she scored a game-high-tying 19 points and grabbed four rebounds. In three road games this year, the Wisconsin native is averaging 20.6 points and 8.3 rebounds per game.

Can't Score Without The Rock
After finishing 2009-10 as the 7th-best ball-protecting team in the country with just 13.6 turnovers per game, the Bonnies are currently coughing the ball up 14.4 times per contest. However, the more troubling statistic for head coach Jim Crowley's club is that St. Bonaventure is 0-3 when it has more turnovers than its opponents, and 4-0 when it has fewer.

Frosh Friends Making New Friends
Freshmen Doris Ortega and CeCe Dixon came to Bonaventure as a package deal from the same high school in Manhattan, and they're starting to let their presence be known on the court. In the Bonnies game against St. John's, Ortega played a career-high 27 minutes off the bench, while Dixon also came off the bench to log 28 minutes. The 55 minutes is the most combined game action the two have seen yet this year, breaking previous highs of 46 in the season opener against Binghamton and 52 at Morgan State. Dixon is doing her best to make friends of her new teammates as well, as the 5-foot-3 guard currently is second on the team in distributing the basketball, issuing 2.0 assists per game.

A List Of Firsts
With St. Bonaventure's loss to St. John's on Monday evening, a few "firsts" happened for the Bonnies:
-- Their first home loss of the season (now 3-1)
-- Their first game this year allowing an opponent to shoot higher than 42.5 percent
-- Their first game this season scoring 20 or fewer points in the second half

Deadly From Distance
Jessica Jenkins is rapidly moving up the St. Bonaventure career 3-point list. The junior currently sits in sixth place on the all-time list with 148 made 3's, and if she continues at the pace she has the last two seasons will head into her senior year in sole possession of third place.

Looking For Another Sub-30
St. Bonaventure held Quinnipiac to 27.8 percent shooting in its win on Nov. 21. Three days later the Bonnies held Niagara to just 28.8 percent shooting, including a 20.8-percent clip in the second half. Those are the lowest total shooting percentages from an opponent since Fordham shot 28.6 percent last year. Fordham was the lone opponent the Bonnies held under 30 percent from the field as they finished as the ninth-toughest scoring defense in the country last year at just 52.7 points per game.

Trying To Re-Ignite
Senior Cara Gustafson got her final campaign in the Brown and White off to a fast start as she scored 11 points in 27 minutes off a career-high-tying three 3-pointers in the season-opening win over Binghamton. However, after taking the final shot of regulation she landed awkwardly and missed the team's next game at Indiana with a right ankle sprain. Since then, she has played just 90 minutes in five games and has scored just five points, going a combined 1-for-11 from the field in those contests.

Don't Remember November
For the first time in four years, the Bonnies finished the month of November without a winning record. The last time Bonaventure failed to achieve that was during the 2006-07 season when it went 3-4 in November.

Trying To Stay Afloat
With the win over Lafayette on Wednesday, St. Bonaventure's record is back above .500. The Bonnies have either been at, or below, .500 for the majority of the season. That record signifies the first time that any member of the current Bonnies' roster had ever been at, or below, .500. Prior to this year, the last time St. Bonaventure was at .500 was during the 2006-07 season when on Feb. 15, 2007 it left Saint Joseph's with a loss to level its record at 13-13.

Trying To Pick Up Where They Left Off
It's still early, but after finishing last year in the top 10 in the country in four different statistical categories, St. Bonaventure is looking to duplicate those finishes this season (number in parenthesis represents national ranking/stats from the start of the week):

2009-10 Free-Throw %: 80.3 (5th)
2010-11: 79.4 (13th)

2009-10 Scoring Defense/Game: 52.7 (9th)
2010-11: 55.4 (49th)

2009-10 3-Point %: 38.5 (7th)
2010-11: 33.3 (92nd)

2009-10 Turnovers/Game: 13.6 (7th)
2010-11: 16.0 (48th)

You Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em; Know When To Fold 'Em
Despite turning the ball over only 14.4 times a game, only two St. Bonaventure players who have played at least 20 minutes per contest have a positive assist-to-turnover ratio. Freshman CeCe Dixon has issued 14 assists while coughing up The Rock nine times, for a 1.56 ratio. Redshirt junior Armelia Horton has 20 dimes, compared with 16 giveaways for a 1.25 ratio.

Next Up
The Bonnies come back home to host the Golden Griffins of Canisius on Tuesday evening at 7 in a Little 3 clash. That game will be the final home game for the team until a Dec. 30 matchup against current No. 10 West Virginia.