Mercer Women’s Basketball Travels to Birmingham to Take on Samford

MACON, Ga. (MERCER RELEASE) – The Mercer women’s basketball team will get one more taste of what to expect next year when it takes on Southern Conference member Samford on Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Pete Hanna Center.

Mercer (4-4) will officially join the Southern Conference in July of 2014, but it’s already getting itself acquainted with its new league quite nicely. The Bears are 3-1 against SoCon schools so far in the 2013-14 season, with wins over Western Carolina, Furman and Elon.

Mercer leads the all-time series with Samford 6-5, with the Bears winning the last meeting between the two schools 85-57 back in 2003, Samford’s last year as a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Scouting the Opposition

Samford has a 2-5 overall record this season after most recently losing on the road at Alabama State 44-40 on Dec. 4. The Bulldogs were picked to finish second in the SoCon Preseason Coaches’ Poll after posting a 14-15 record last season. Saturday’s contest will only be the second home game for Samford this season after posting a 9-4 mark at home in 2012-13. Samford has struggled to score this season, ranking last in the SoCon averaging 52.4 points per game on 36 percent shooting. Sophomore Krista Stricklin paces the Bulldogs offensively averaging 9.0 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.

Last Time Out

MACON, Ga. – The Mercer women’s basketball team shot just 30 percent from the field and 38 percent from the free throw line in a 61-54 loss to Georgia Southern on Wednesday evening at Hawkins Arena.

Mercer out-rebounded Georgia Southern 55-43, but simply couldn’t get in a rhythm offensively en route to its first home loss of the 2013-14 campaign.

Junior Precious Bridges led four Bears in double figures with 15 points, but classmate Teanna Robinson was the star of the night for Mercer.

Robinson narrowly missed out on a triple-double, tallying career-highs of 14 points and 20 rebounds to go along with seven blocks in the loss. Robinson’s 20 rebounds were the most by an Atlantic Sun Conference player since East Tennessee State’s Destiny Mitchell grabbed 20 rebounds on Feb. 25, 2012.

Game Notes

– Senior Sharnea Boykin dished out five assists in Mercer’s game against Georgia Southern on Dec. 4 to become the 13th A-Sun Women’s Basketball Player to eclipse 500+ assists in their career in conference history. Boykin currently ranks first in the A-Sun Conference this season by averaging 7.0 assists per contest.

– Junior Briana Williams currently has 1,111 career points and a career scoring average of 17.1 points per game. Williams needs just eight more points to move into the all-time top-10 in Mercer program history and the top-70 in A-Sun Conference history.