Women's Basketball Welcomes Wake Forest For Home Opener

Sunday, November 19

Piscataway, N.J.

6:30 PM

Rutgers University

WAKE FOREST

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Women's Basketball Welcomes Wake Forest For Home Opener

Nov 18 | Women's Basketball

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Scarlet Knights & Demon Deacons Tipoff at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The Rutgers women's basketball team hosts Wake Forest in its home opener on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Sunday's contest will be streamed on BTN Plus with Lou Brogno and Patrick Boyle on the call and air on the Rutgers IMG Radio Network with Ralph Bednarczyk and Mark Peterson calling all the action.

PROMOTIONS
Season Ticket Holder Appreciation Night
Raffle: Weekend Trip to Mountain Creek
Free Admission for Junior Knights
Free Admission with Men' Basketball vs. Coppin State Ticket
Halftime: Riot Squad Game

WELCOME HOME SCARLET KNIGHTS
The Rutgers women's basketball team is back home after opening the season 3-0 on the road for the first of 16 games featured at the RAC this season with Wake Forest on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Prior to tip off the Rutgers men will take on Coppin State at 12:30 p.m.

Rutgers is coming off a 77-54 victory at Charlotte on Thursday night in which the Scarlet Knights poured in 52 points in the paint, secured 38 points off 28 49er turnovers and saw 12 of the 14 members of the roster score.

RU was led by redshirt senior guard Tyler Scaife with 18 points, senior guard Jazlynd Rollins with 13 point and junior forward Caitlin Jenkins narrowly missing a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds. Rollins also dished out a career-high five assists.

The Scarlet Knights have used all 14 members of the available roster in the three games to date.

ABOUT WAKE FOREST
The Demon Deacons come to the RAC at 2-1 overall with wins over Texas Southern (73-56) and more recently at Richmond (85-81) on Wednesday night. In between, Wake Forest dropped a 67-57 contest at home against fellow New Jersey school Seton Hall, a squad RU will meet on Dec. 8.

Rutgers will be one of three Big Ten teams the Demon Deacons take on in nonconference play. Following Sunday's meeting with Rutgers, Wake Forest will meet up with Minnesota in the Lady Rebel Round-Up over Thanksgiving and travel to Penn State for the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

Senior guard Amber Campbell leads a trio of Wake Forest double figure scorers through three games. She is pouring in 16.0 points per game along with 5.7 rebounds per contest. Campbell's layup with 16 seconds left in Wednesday's contest with Richmond sealed the victory for the Demon Deacons.

Sophomore forward Tyra Whitehead is adding in 13.0 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, while sophomore guard Alex Sharp is contributing 10.7 points along with a team-leading 7.3 boards per contest.

The Demon Deacons finished 16-16 overall last season and went 6-10 in the ACC. Wake Forest reached the WNIT second round. They opened with a victory over Bethune Cookman (71-42) before falling to Middle Tennessee State (73-66).

Wake Forest was picked 12th in the ACC Preseason Poll with junior Elisa Penna tabbed a Preseason All-ACC honoree. Penna has missed the first three games of the season with an injury.

LAST TIME VS. WAKE FOREST
The Rutgers women's basketball team fell 55-43 to Wake Forest at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Coliseum on Nov. 17, 2016.

Khadaizha Sanders led the Scarlet Knights with a then career-high 12 points with Desiree Keeling hauling in a then career-high 11 boards in the loss.

Wake Forest was led by a 21-point, nine-rebound effort by Ariel Stephenson. Milan Quinn and Elisa Penna both tacked on 10 points each in the win.

After RU ended the first quarter only down by one, 13-12, it was 9-2 runs by the Demon Deacons to start and end the second quarter that put Wake Forest ahead for good. The Demon Deacons' opening run gave Wake Forest a 22-14 lead at the quarter's midpoint.

Moments later though it was a four-point ball game thanks to back-to-back scores by Parker and Kate Hill that saw RU trail 22-18. From there, however, Wake Forest employed it's next 9-2 run to establish a 32-20 halftime lead.

The Demon Deacons came out of the half on a 10-0 run and extended its advantage to 42-20 with 6:31 left in the third quarter.

PROTECTING HOMECOURT
Since the 2002-03 season, the Scarlet Knights have gone 179-43 (.806) at the RAC.

GETTING THE POINTS
Rutgers is enjoying one of its highest scoring averages under C. Vivian Stringer's 23-year tenure "On the Banks"

Top RU Scoring Averages Under C. Vivian Stringer
1. 79.0 (3 games) 2017-18 - 3-0 - Current Season
2. 70.0 (35 games) 1998-99 – 29-6 – Elite Eight
3t. 68.7 (32 games) 2014-15 - 23-10 - 2nd Round
3t. 68.7 (32 games) 1997-98 – 22-10 – Sweet 16
5. 67.3 (29 games) 2002-03 – 21-8 – 2nd Round
6. 66.2 (37 games) 2013-14 – WNIT Champions
7. 65.6 (31 games) 2000-01 – 23-8 – 2nd Round

SEASON OPENING NOTES
RU improved to 30-14 all-time in season openers and 13-10 in openers under head coach C. Vivian Stringer in the 76-63 win over JMU.

The Scarlet Knights are 35-8 in home openers, including a 16-6 mark under head coach C. Vivian Stringer, heading into the first game at the RAC in 2017-18.

Additionally, Rutgers has picked up three road wins after earning no road victories a season ago. Before downing the Dukes and Owls, RU's last victory away from the friendly confines of the RAC was back on Feb. 13, 2016 in a 63-56 win at Illinois.

Rutgers put together back-to-back-to-back true road wins for the first time since 2014-15 season when the Scarlet Knights rattled off wins at Penn State (Jan. 10 - 71-51), at Wisconsin (Jan. 18 - 73-61), at Purdue (Jan. 29 - 58-49) and at Michigan (Feb. 8 - 57-50).

Also in the same season, Rutgers earned wins in its first six road games at LSU (Nov. 22 - 64-57), at Wagner (Nov. 26 - 83-51), at #25 Arkansas (Dec. 7 - 64-52), at Temple (Dec. 10 - 88-55), at Iona (Dec. 20 - 66-58) and at Indiana (Dec. 28 - 66-51). The win against the Hoosiers was RU's first Big Ten Conference game and victory.

The Scarlet Knights last opened up a season with three or more games away from the RAC during the 2006-07 campaign. In that season, which culminated in the national championship game appearance, RU played mainly neutral site contests taking part in the State Farm Tipoff in Norman, Oklahoma, the Time Out for HIV/AIDS Tournament in Malibu, California and the Paradise Jam Tournament in St. Thomas.

In 1986-87, Rutgers spent its first five games on the road going 5-0 during the span. That year, the Scarlet Knights went 30-3 overall won the Atlantic 10 title and reached the Sweet 16.

HELPING HANDS
After committing 25 turnovers against James Madison in the season opener last Friday, the Scarlet Knights have significantly cut down the number of miscues.

Rutgers committed only 12 turnovers at Temple on Monday night and 13 turnovers at Charlotte on Thursday.

Additionally, Rutgers has handed out 19 assists in each of the last two games. Ten Scarlet Knights recorded at least one helper in Monday's 84-67 win over the Owls led by seven assists from Khadaizha Sanders.

Eight Scarlet Knights registered a helper in Thursday's 77-54 win over the 49ers led by a career-high five assists by senior guard Jazlynd Rollins.

Thursday's game with the 49ers also saw Rutgers with 20 steals, the most thefts by the Scarlet Knights since recording 22 steals at Penn State on Jan. 10, 2015. Eleven members of the roster were able to register at least one takeaway.

INTO THE DEEP END
All 14 members of the available roster have appeared in the first three games of the 2017-18 season. Through three games, the Scarlet Knight bench is averaging 43.7 points per contest.
Prior to this season, the last time Rutgers had 14 Scarlet Knights on the court was in a 65-26 win over Savannah State on Dec. 13, 2015.

On Thursday night against Charlotte, 12 of the 14 members of the squad scored.

MILESTONE NUMBERS TO REMEMBER
Rutgers head coach Stringer has compiled a 980-390 career record in 47 seasons and is 20 wins away from joining Stanford's Tara VanDerveer and former Tennessee head coach Pat Summit with 1,000 career victories in women's basketball.

In 2013, Stringer became just the seventh coach - men's or women's - to reach the 900-win mark.

Stringer's 34 20-win seasons are second-best in women's basketball history. Former Tennessee head coach Pat Summit leads all coaches with 36 20-win seasons.

Stringer is the fourth active winningest Division I coach and sixth all-time in career wins in NCAA women's basketball history.

In the Dec. 3 win over Bucknell last season, the Rutgers women's basketball team played its 1300th game in history since beginning the program in 1974.

RU has gone 906-418 with the Scarlet Knights earning its 900th program victory in the 53-45 win over in-state rival Seton Hall on Dec. 13, 2016.

Other Big Ten programs with 900 or more wins include Penn State, who also reached the milestone during the 2016-17 season, Ohio State and Maryland.

Tyler Scaife is currently ninth on the Rutgers all-time scoring leaders list with 1,665 points. She needs 18 more points to move past Tanya Hansen (1988-92) to move into eighth place.

UP NEXT
Following Sunday's game Rutgers will head to the Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Florida and open up tournament play with defending national champion South Carolina. Joining the Scarlet Knights and Gamecocks in the tournament bracket will be ETSU, Notre Dame, South Florida, St. John's, Washington State and Western Michigan. Rutgers will face either Western Michigan or St. John's in the second round game.

Follow Rutgers women's basketball at www.ScarletKnights.com and (@RutgersWBB) on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for all of the latest news and updates.

-RU-