Nov. 18, 2004

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MISSOURI (0-0) at the KCRG TV-9 Hawkeye Challenge
Friday-Saturday, November 19-20, 2004 - Iowa City, Iowa

TIPOFF: 3 p.m. CST on Friday vs. Northern Illinois; 1 p.m. on Saturday vs. host Iowa or 3:30 p.m. vs. Southern Illinois
ARENA: Carver-Hawkeye Arena (15,500). Opened in 1983. Missouri is 88-65 (.575) all-time at neutral sites, 164-182 (.474) on the road and 58-26 (.690) in non-conference games under Cindy Stein.
RADIO: KFRU-AM 1400 (David Lile, play-by-play/Kerensa Barr, color). Also available on the Internet at www.mutigers.com. NOTE: Saturday's game will be tape-delayed until approximately 6 p.m.
TV: None.
SERIES: Northern Illinois - Mizzou leads, 1-0 (78-76 in Columbia on 12/30/87); Iowa - Iowa leads, 4-1 (MU won, 75-65, in Columbia last Dec. 30); Southern Illinois - Tied, 5-5 (MU won, 81-57, in Columbia on 12/9/00).
RANKINGS: All four teams are unranked.
COACHES:

• Missouri: Cindy Stein (Illinois '84), 101-79 at MU (seventh season) and 166-104 overall (10th season).
• Northern Illinois: Carol Hammerle (No. Nichigan '70), 73-99 at NIU (seventh season) and 529-325 overall (32nd season).
• Iowa: Lisa Bluder (No. Iowa '83), 73-49 at UI (fifth season) and 429-191 overall (21st season).
• Southern Illinois: Dana Eikenberg (Penn State '82), 0-0 at SIU (first season) and 38-74 overall (fifth season).

TIGERS BEGIN 31ST SEASON THIS WEEKEND IN IOWA
The University of Missouri women's basketball team begins its quest for a school-record sixth straight postseason berth beginning Friday afternoon vs. Northern Illinois in the first round of the KCRG TV-9 Hawkeye Challenge. On Saturday, the Tigers will play either Iowa at 1 p.m. or Southern Illinois at 3:30 p.m. NOTE: Saturday's times have changed from what was printed in the Missouri media guide because of a change in the Iowa-Wisconsin football kickoff Saturday afternoon to accommodate ESPN.
Mizzou enters the game coming off a 19-point exhibition win last Friday vs. Central Missouri State in the first-ever contest at Paige Sports Arena, the Tigers' sparkling new $75 million, 15,061-seat home located just southwest of the old Hearnes Center.

LAST TIME OUT: MIZZOU 71, CENT. MO. STATE 52 (ex.)
Junior center Christelle N'Garsanet (Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire / Illinois Central College) led a quartet of Tigers with double-figure point totals as the Missouri women's basketball team led Central Missouri State wire-to-wire for a 71-52 exhibition win last Friday night (Nov. 12) at Paige Sports Arena.
      Mizzou led by as many as 13 points in the first half, but saw its lead dwindle to nine with just over two minutes to go before the half. With 1:32 remaining and the Tigers leading 29-20, junior guard LaToya Bond (Urbana, Ill. / Urbana HS) banked in a jump shot from the right wing and was fouled. She converted the free throw to put Mizzou up by 12, and they would head into the break leading by 14 (34-20).
      Freshman guard Kassie Drew (Anna, Ill. / Anna-Jonesboro HS) scored seven of her 10 points in the second half, while classmate Crystal Howard (Omaha, Neb. / Central HS) also poured in seven of her nine after the break.

N'GARSANET ASSERTING HERSELF INSIDE
After averaging just 3.6 points and 2.9 rebounds last season, junior center Christelle N'Garsanet gave Tiger fans a glimpse that things might be different for the junior this year. N'Garsanet went off for 20 points and 14 rebounds in Mizzou's 19-point exhibition win over Central Missouri State.
      N'Garsanet started just one game last year, but improved immensely in the off-season to secure a starting role this season.

NICE-A-RONEY
Center Megan Roney (Independence, Mo. / Truman HS) is the lone returning senior for this year's squad, and is just one of two returning starters from last season's NCAA Tournament squad. She finished last season on a solid note, going 9-of-12 from the field in two games at the Big 12 Tournament to rank among the best individual performances of the tournament, and will look to continue that success this year.

BOND ... LaToya Bond
Junior guard LaToya Bond (Urbana, Ill. / Urbana HS) is the team's other returning starter, and is fully recovered from a broken left foot suffered just before the start of the last season's Big 12 Conference schedule. Even after sitting out nine games, Bond still finished second on the team in assists (95), and had a career-high nine against Iowa last December.

MU WOMEN PICKED EIGHTH BY MEDIA, COACHES
Mizzou has been picked to finish eighth by regional media and the Big 12's coaches, in separate polling conducted prior to the season.
      The league's media had a tough time separating the sixth through eighth spots, as Iowa State and Colorado each had just five more polling points than the Tigers' 78.
      The Tigers amassed 45 points from the 11 other coaches - mentors were not allowed to vote for their own teams - in that poll, 14 fewer than Colorado. That's not necessarily bad news for the Tigers, as the coaches' poll has not traditionally been a good prognostication of the MU's success. The Tigers have finished at or above their selected position in each of the last four years. For the last two seasons, Mizzou was picked to finish seventh; the Tigers finished fifth in 2003, and seventh last year. In 2002, the coaches tabbed the Tigers 10th before MU finished ninth, and in 2001 the coaches selected Mizzou eighth, one spot lower than the Tigers actually finished.

STRONG SCHEDULE WILL HELP IN THE END
Last year's Tigers owe much of their at-large NCAA Tournament berth to a strong RPI rating, and more specifically, a strong schedule. The same can be said this year, as the Tigers enter 2004-05 with the 22nd-toughest slate out of 328 indexed teams, according to the WBCA/Summerville RPI.
      Six Mizzou opponents - Stanford, along with Big 12 foes Texas, Baylor, Texas Tech, Kansas State and Oklahoma - are ranked in the preseason coaches' poll, while another three schools - SMS, Colorado, New Mexico and Eastern Michigan - are receiving votes.
      A total of 15 schools that reached postseason play last year are on this year's schedule. In all, the Tigers could end up playing as many as 19 of their 28 regular-season games against postseason squads.

ANOTHER PEEK AT THE PAIGE
Ground was broken on Sept. 21, 2002, on a new $75 million facility for Missouri's basketball teams. Paige Sports Arena opened this Oct. 1, and ribbon-cutting ceremonies were held on Oct. 22. In addition to an expanded seating capacity over its predecessor (15,061 vs. 13,611 in the Hearnes Center), The Paige sports the following amenities, among others:

• 26 luxury suites
• State-of-the-art training room
• Expanded strength and conditioning facilities
• Expanded locker rooms facilities, complete with team film room and player lounge
• Practice gym (footprint is larger than the Hearnes Center competition floor)
• Office complex for the basketball staff
• Missouri Athletics Hall of Fame

Paige Sports Arena also features the latest technological advances. Each meeting room and coaching office contains video hookups to access game footage from a central location. Regional and national broadcast networks televising games from Paige Sports Arena may hook into permanent patch-in panels from their location in the television production area. The audio-video room within the arena is also linked via fiber-optic cable to Mizzou's other major sporting venues - the Hearnes Center and Memorial Stadium - as well as to the University-owned and operated NBC affiliate, KOMU-TV.
      The arena contains a center-hung score and video board, as well as a 30-inch video ribbon board that rings the seating bowl.

HEAD COACH Cindy Stein
Since arriving in Columbia in 1998, Cindy Stein has turned the fortunes of the Missouri women's basketball program around, thanks to a fast-paced offensive style and tenacious defense -- both trademarks of a Stein-coached team. In just six seasons, Stein has returned the University of Missouri women's basketball team to national prominence. That success is the result of five straight postseason appearances, which matches the longest stretch in school history dating back nearly 20 years. She was rewarded with a two-year contract extension in September that runs through the 2007-08 season.
      Recognized as one of the nation's top young women's basketball coaches, Cindy Stein notched a pair of milestones last season. She earned her 150th career victory in her hometown of Peoria, Ill., on Nov. 23, at Bradley. She also tallied her 100th win as Mizzou's head coach last March 5, at Texas A&M. Stein has a 101-79 mark in six seasons at MU and is 166- 104 in nine years overall as a collegiate head coach.
      Her accomplishments have not gone unnoticed by the national basketball community, as last summer Stein served her country as an assistant coach with USA Basketball at the World University Games. She also was able to mentor one of her standout players, as senior forward Evan Unrau was a member of the squad that was comprised of Big 12 Conference all-stars. Unrau joined another Stein recruit, WNBA veteran Amanda Lassiter, as All-Big 12 First Team recipients since the league's formation seven years ago. Unrau also joined Lassiter and Marlena Williams among Mizzou's draftees into the WNBA when she was selected in the third round of this May's draft.
      In guiding the Tigers through the rigors of the Big 12 Conference, recognized as one of the toughest in the country, Stein has done twice what had not been done since 1983: finish above .500 in league play. Those two times were the Sweet Sixteen season of 2001, and the 2003 campaign, when the Tigers finished tied for fifth in the Big 12 with their 9-7 mark.
      The 2002-03 season was also noteworthy, as Mizzou qualified for postseason play for the fourth straight time by advancing to the quarterfinals of the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT). That was the deepest a Tiger squad has ever advanced in a national postseason tournament, and a one-point loss at Colorado State in the quarterfinals was all that separated Mizzou from reaching that tournament's final four teams. This past season, despite key injuries and an 0-4 start to conference play, Stein rebounded the squad to the program's eighth NCAA Tournament appearance and second under Stein - the fifth consecutive year that Mizzou has reached the postseason.
      Members of Stein's teams have earned First Team Academic All-Big 12 honors 22 times in the six years Stein has been at MU, and three others have earned Honorable Mention recognition by the league. In addition, Kerensa Barr - who has joined her mentor on the coaching staff as a graduate assistant - earned Academic All-America honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America in 2002.
      In addition to her coaching exploits, Stein was a talented player in college. A junior-college All-American, she led Illinois Central College to two appearances at the NJCAA National Tournament, then helped the University of Illinois make the 1982 NCAA Tournament Field. Nearly 20 years later, Stein still holds two of the top four single-season assist totals in Illini history.
      Stein's coaching debut came as a graduate assistant at Central Michigan University from 1984-86. She graduated from Central Michigan with a master's degree in physical education with an emphasis in athletic administration. She also worked as an assistant coach at Miami University (1986-87) and Cincinnati (1987-88). She then served as an assistant coach at Bradley for five years, and also as the recruiting coordinator at her alma mater, Illinois; Stein also served as an assistant coach with the Illini from 1993-95 before taking the head coaching appointment at Emporia State.
      Stein, who was inducted into the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame in March of 2002, was named the 2001 Coach of the Year by the Columbia chapter of the Women's Intersport Network.
      A member of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, Stein just completed a term as a member of the prestigious WBCA Kodak All-America Selection Committee. In past years, she has served in various other committee positions with the NCAA Rules Committee, the City of Columbia Chamber of Commerce, and the Women's Network Steering Committee.