Big South Conference Announces Women’s Schedule

Photo credit to Matt Pendleton via Flickr

College Basketball

Big South Conference Announces Women’s Schedule

CHARLOTTE, N.C.  – The Big South Conference unveiled its 2018-19 women’s basketball composite league schedule Tuesday afternoon.  The 99-game slate over a nine-week period begins on Saturday, Jan. 5, and each member will play an 18-game unbalanced schedule as part of the league’s Tuesday-Saturday format that has been in place since 2014-15.

The 11 Big South members will play eight teams twice and two teams once to determine the 2018-19 regular-season champion.  League play will feature one three-game week (Jan. 8-12), and each team will receive two byes during the season.

Big South Games to Watch

Schedule highlights include the first Big South games for new members Hampton (Jan. 5 at Charleston Southern) and USC Upstate (Jan. 5 vs. High Point), one head-to-head meeting between the Lady Pirates and Spartans (Tuesday, Jan. 29 at Hampton), and six total match-ups between the Big South’s three first-year Division I head coaches (Gardner-Webb’s Alex Simmons, Longwood’s Rebecca Tillett, and Presbyterian’s Alaura Sharp).  Four of the Big South’s five new head coaches — Simmons, Tillett, Sharp and Hampton’s David Six, will make their respective Big South debuts on the road.

UNC Asheville, which has played in the last three Big South Championship games with two titles, opens Big South play Jan. 5 at Radford — the Bulldogs have eliminated the Highlanders in the conference tournament each of the past two seasons.  Campbell, Charleston Southern, and USC Upstate will open and close league play at home, while Gardner-Webb, High Point, and Longwood will start and end conference action on the road.

The Big South’s two active win leaders for league games, Campbell’s Ronny Fisher (84) and High Point’s DeUnna Hendrix (74), will go head-to-head Tuesday, Jan. 22 and Saturday, March 9.  The teams also tied for second in the standings last season.

Radford’s Mike McGuire is slated to coach his 100th Big South game on Saturday, Jan. 12 against Winthrop.  High Point is seeking its seventh-straight 10-win Big South season in 2018-19.

Radford carries the conference’s longest active regular-season win streak into the season at 10 games, while the Highlanders also own the league’s active win streak for home conference victories at seven.

Big South Tournament

The 2019 Big South Women’s Basketball Championship will shift to a home-site, earned-seed format with the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds hosting the quarterfinal and semifinal round as part of a new double-pod system.  Three first-round games at the No. 6, 7 and 8 seeds open the Championship on Tuesday, March 12, followed by the quarterfinals (March 14) and semifinals (March 15) at the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, with the highest remaining seed hosting the Championship game on Sunday, March 17.

Photo credit to Matt Pendleton via Flickr