Dec. 4, 2001

COLUMBIA, Mo. - The University of Missouri women's basketball team, which is off to a 5-1 start this season, will play Saint Louis Friday and Northern Iowa Sunday. *Friday, MU at Saint Louis, 7 p.m., Bauman-Eberhardt Center, St. Louis, Mo.
*Sunday, MU vs. Northern Iowa, 3 p.m., Hearnes Center

Canned food drive: Fans can attend Sunday's game against Northern Iowa for $2 if they bring in three canned food items (per person) as part of the Salvation Army Holiday Canned Food Drive.

The Foes: Saint Louis enters the week with a 3-2 record. The Billikens defeated Southeastern Louisiana, 69-55, last week. SLU will play at Dayton Tuesday before facing the Tigers. Head coach Jill Pizzoti is in her seventh season and has guided the Billikens to a 73-98 mark. She ranks as the second-winningest coach for SLU. Christan Shelton, who was a third-team All-Conference USA player last season, leads the Billikens in scoring at 12.4 points per game. Angie Lewis, who had 18 points and 13 rebounds against Southeastern Louisiana, averages 12.2 points and 9.6 rebounds per contest.
Northern Iowa is in the middle of a 13-game road swing to open the season. The Panthers are 3-3 and play at Arkansas State Wednesday and at Arkansas Friday before meeting the Tigers. Head coach Tony DiCecco is in his seventh season with the Panthers and has guided them to an 86-84 mark. Sophomore forward Amy Swisher, who was named to the 2001 All-Missouri Valley Conference Freshman Team, leads the team in scoring (15 ppg), rebounds (7.7 rpg), assists (22) and steals (8). Abbi Schuttte, also an all-conference performer, averages 12.8 and 7.7 rebounds per contest.

The Series: Missouri has met Saint Louis 12 times and the Tigers have won all 12 meetings.

Here's a look at the series scores:

*1/25/76 - MU 51, SLU 38 - St. Louis

*12/3/76 - MU 73, SLU 41 - St. Louis

*2/12/78 - MU 116, SLU 64 - Columbia

*12/2/78 - MU 76, SLU 51 - St. Louis

*1/5/80 - MU 85, SLU 77 - Columbia

*12/17/80 - MU 71, SLU 48 - Columbia

*1/21/81 - MU 67, SLU 66 - St. Louis

*12/4/81 - MU 71 , SLU 50 - St. Louis

*2/12/82 - MU 93, SLU 49 - Columbia

*1/26/83 - MU 92, SLU 38 - Columbia

*12/11/99 - MU 78, SLU 65 - St. Louis

*12/7/00 - MU 73, SLU 63 - Columbia


The Tigers and Panthers have met twice with MU winning both times.
Missouri won the first meeting, in the 1983-84 season, at the Hearnes Center. The other meeting came at the 1986 Northern Illinois Invitational.
Here are the series scores:

*11/19/83 - MU 110, Northern Iowa 47

*12/6/86 - MU 85, Northern Iowa 54


MU-SLU Last Year: The Tigers opened the game with a 16-0 run and needed a second-half rally to pick up a 73-63 victory at the Hearnes Center. The Billikens were unable to score until the sixth minute of play.
Saint Louis, which had an 11-2 run in the first half, eventually tied the game, 41-41, early in the second half.
Missouri answered with an 8-2 run and never looked back. Terianne Wolford's five points fueled the Tigers' run.
Amanda Lassiter recorded her seventh game in double digits with 20 points and eight rebounds. She also led the Tigers with four assists, three blocks and six steals.

Television Coverage: The Tigers are 2-0 on TV this season. Missouri's next game on the tube will be Friday's game against Saint Louis. Charter Communications (St. Louis) will broadcast the game.
Missouri had 12 games televised last season and posted a 8-4 record.

Tigers Get Votes: Missouri received two votes in both of this week's Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN/WBCA Coaches polls.
The Tigers received one vote in last week's AP poll.

Tournament Success: Missouri won the Unilever Lady Tiger Tournament this past weekend, giving MU its 17th win in 24 championship game appearances.

Top Performances: Evan Unrau's 30-point effort against Southeastern Louisiana is the top single-game scoring performance this season in the Big 12 Conference.
Unrau's 5-of-5 effort from beyond the 3-point field goal line against Southeastern Louisiana also ranks as the top mark in the Big 12.
Kerensa Barr's 17 made free throws (and her 18 attempts) are the most this season in one game in the Big 12.

Big 12 Stat Leaders: Missouri leads the Big 12 Conference in free throw percentage as the Tigers have made 107-of-134 foul shots for a league-best 79.9 percentage mark.
Mizzou is second in 3-point field goal percentage defense, allowing foes to make only 26.7 percent (16-of-60) of its shots from beyond the 3-point arc.

MU's Last Time Out: The Tigers used a 12-0 run to close the first half of Saturday's Unilever Lady Tiger Tournament championship game and rolled to an 80-62 victory over Southeast Missouri.
Missouri was led by junior guard Kerensa Barr, who had 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists to earn all-tournament honors. She had her second double-double of the season and of her career.
Evan Unrau, who was named the tournament's most valuable player, scored nine first-half points to lead the Tigers to a 35-19 lead at the break. Unrau finished the game with 13 points. Natalie Bright added 11 points and Amy Loftus had a career-best 10 points and nine rebounds.
The Tigers have now won seven straight games at home and 17 of the past 18 home contests.

Southeast Missouri Postgame Notes

All-tournament team: As the Tigers won their 17th Unilever Lady Tiger Classic (the tournament has had other sponsors/names during its 24-year run), Missouri's Evan Unrau was named most valuable player. Joining her on the all-tournament team were: Missouri's Kerensa Barr, Southeast Missouri's Lori Chase and Christine Rathke, Southeastern Louisiana's Pam Mathews and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Kristin Rogers.
Big run: With three minutes and 59 seconds to play in the first half, Missouri held a 23-19 lead. Over the next 14 minutes, Missouri went on a 41-13 run to take a 64-32 lead and ice the game.
Career highs: Kerensa Barr tied her career-high with 10 rebounds as she posted her second career double-double. Barr, who tied her career-high with seven made field goals, added 21 points and seven assists to her total. Wannette Smith had a career-best nine rebounds while Amy Loftus had career-high marks in points (10) and rebounds (nine). Lauren Podratz tied her career-high with five points.
It's good: Evan Unrau saw her streak six consecutive 3-point field goals go by the wayside on her second attempt from beyond the 3-point arc. Unrau finished with 13 points and five rebounds.

100 and counting: MU scored 100 or more points for the third time under head coach Cindy Stein in the Tigers' 101-63 win over Davidson. MU has scored 100 or more points 32 times in its history. Missouri is 3-0 under Stein when topping the century mark and 31-1 all-time.

Record Setter: Kerensa Barr set the Missouri all-time record for free throws made in a game as she sank 17 against Davidson. Barr's mark broke the previous record of 16 by Erika Martin against Kansas on Feb. 4, 1996. Barr finished the game by making her last 15 attempts.

Offensive Rebounds: Evan Unrau is once again the Tigers' leading rebounder at 8.2 caroms per game but 21 of her 49 rebounds have come off of the offensive glass.
In fact, the Tigers are hitting the offensive boards well as a team, snaring 95 or 36.7 percent of their total on the offensive end.

Defense: The Tigers have limited three of its foes to 57 or fewer points this season.
Missouri has forced its opponents to shoot less that 40 percent (132-of-336, 38.3 percent) from the field and commit 142 turnovers.

Free Throws: To put it mildly, Missouri has been successful at the foul line this season. The Tigers have been getting to the free-throw line early and often this season in their four wins.
After making 23-of-28 attempts in the win over UMKC, the Tigers sank 24-of-31 free throws against SMS.
Missouri was 32-of-41 from the free-throw line against Davidson.
The Tigers made only 10-of-13 foul shots against Southeastern Louisiana. However, Mizzou was helped by a season-best eight 3-point field goals in the game.
In the win over Southeast Missouri, Mizzou was 11-of-13 from the line.
In its lone loss this season, MU made only 7-of-8 foul shots against South Carolina.

Free Throws II: While this note will probably break the streak, Kerensa Barr enters the week having made 20 consecutive free throws. It is the longest streak of the past two seasons.

Put me in Coach: Ten of Missouri's student-athletes average 7.8 minutes per game.

Scoring Power: The Tigers' starting five average 78.2 percent of the team's scoring per game.
MU has used three different starting lineups this season.

Missouri Head Coach: Cindy Stein is in her fourth season at the helm of the Tigers. She has a mark of 58-38 with Missouri and is 123-63 in seven seasons as a head coach. Stein is assisted this season by: associate head coach Betsy Yonkman, assistant coach Tanya Warren and assistant coach Edith Thompson. Former Missouri standouts Amanda Lassiter, Marlena "Pep" Williams and Tracy Franklin are serving as student assistants.

Career leaders: Kerensa Barr and Natalie Bright continue to make an impact on the Tigers' all-time career charts.
Barr has made 35 3-point field goals in her career to rank seventh all-time at Missouri while Bright has made 63 to rank sixth.
Bright ranks sixth with 185 3-point field goal attempts. Her next 3-point attempt will tie her with Amy Fordham (1991-94) for fifth place Barr ranks seventh with 102 attempts.
Barr ranks ninth in 3-point field goal percentage at 34.3 percent while Bright is now 10th at 34.1 percent.
Barr ranks eighth in free throw percentage (134-of-175, 76.6 percent).
Barr has not quite cracked the program's all-time Top 10 list in career assists as she has 231 assists. Sarah Campbell (1983-85) is in 10th place with 247 assists.

Rankings: Missouri was picked by both the Big 12 Conference coaches and the media covering the league to finish 10th in the 2001-2002 league standings.
The Tigers have been picked 43rd nationally by Basketball News, a publication which chose the schools it feels will make the 2002 NCAA Tournament.

Ratings II: Missouri is ranked 50th in this week's RPI rankings with a mark of 82.09. The Tigers were also 50th last week.
Missouri's strength of schedule is 192nd at 70.61.
In this week's WBCA/Summerville RPI Rankings, MU moved up 18 spots to 27th (.60756) from last week's 45th ranking.
Missouri's strength of schedule ranking is 138th.

Radio Coverage: Missouri women's basketball is covered live on KFRU (1400 AM), KWWC (90.5 FM), KLIK (1240 AM) or on the Tiger Network. David Lile, Jessica Jenkins and Gary Link offer all the action.
A majority of the Tigers' games can be found on KFRU but various games will be on KWWC and KLIK.
Mizzou fans can also log onto the Missouri web site, www.mutigers.com, for coverage.

Tough Schedule: While the RPI and WBCA/Summerville rankings have one idea about the Tigers' strength of schedule, here are some facts.
Eleven opponents - #3 Oklahoma, #5 Iowa State, #9 Baylor, #14 Texas Tech, #15 Colorado, #17 Texas, #23 South Carolina, (RV) Nebraska, (RV) Illinois, (RV) Kansas State (RV) UW-Green Bay - are ranked in the Associated Press poll and nine - #4 Oklahoma, #6 Iowa State, #13 Texas Tech, #14 Baylor, #15 Colorado, #17 Texas, (RV) South Carolina, (RV) SMS and (RV) Kansas State - are in the USA Today/ESPN/WBCA Coaches poll.
Tigers are currently 1-0 against schools (MU 61, SMS 57) which are receiving votes or are ranked at the time of the game.

Youth is Served: Missouri's active roster of 11 consists of one senior (Natalie Bright), two juniors (Kerensa Barr and Wannette Smith), five sophomores (Tracy Lozier, Evan Unrau, Terianne Wolford, Amy Loftus and Melanie Fisher) and three freshmen (Lauren Podratz, Angie Carter and Megan Roney).

Last Year: The Tigers posted a 22-10 record and advanced to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen.

Radio Show: Tiger Talk with Cindy Stein starts at 7 p.m. on Dec. 10. The show will originate from Harpo's and be aired by KFRU.

Signings: MU head coach Cindy Stein announced on Nov. 14 the signing of Latoya Bond and Cherice Mack to National Letters of Intent.

Who's Next?: After this weekend's games, the Tigers are off until Dec. 20 when they face Arkansas-Pine Bluff at the Hearnes Center.

Big 12 Numbers: Here's a look at this week's Big 12 statistical report:

Scoring: Kerensa Barr - 3rd, 19.2 ppg, Evan Unrau - 9th, 15.5 ppg

Rebounding: Evan Unrau -6th, 8.2 rpg, Kerensa Barr - 8th, 7.3 rpg, Melanie Fisher - 12th, 6.8 rpg

Field Goal Percentage: Melanie Fisher - 6th, 55.6 percent (20-of-36)
	Evan Unrau - 9th, 54.1 percent (33-of-61)

3-point FG Percentage: Evan Unrau - 2nd, 57.1 percent (8-of-14)

Free Throw Percentage: Kerensa Barr - 2nd, 92.7 percent (38-of-41)
	Evan Unrau - 11th, 82.6 percent (19-of-23)

Steals: Kerensa Barr - 3rd, 2.67 spg
Assists: Kerensa Barr - 10th, 4.17 apg