Feb. 8, 2008

Listen Live | Game Notes

BOSTON - The Boston University women's basketball team (12-9, 5-3 AE) will travel to Hartford (17-4, 7-1 AE) on Saturday, Feb. 9 for a 2:00 p.m. game with the Hawks at Chase Arena. The Terriers are the only team in the America East to hand Hartford a loss this season and just the fourth team all year. The game will be streamed live as an America East PackCast and produced by the Pack Network. The live streaming can be accessed at the America East Zone at americaeast.com.

The Terriers and Hawks have a long and storied history together, and in recent years the teams have only added to it, meeting in two of the last three conference championship games. BU leads by a 26-23 margin all time. Earlier this season, junior Kristi Dini's game-winning, half-court buzzer-beater lifted the Terriers over the Hawks, 62-60, in the conference opener.

The series began in the 1985-86 season when the Terriers rattled off 13 consecutive victories. Hartford earned its first win of the series on Feb. 2, 1991 - a 60-48 decision. The Hawks won the three of the next four games before BU put together a string of four straight wins. From Jan. 4, 1996 to Jan. 21, 2001, Hartford won 10-of-11 games. The Terriers started the 2000's winning 7-of-11 contests; however, in recent history, the Hawks have has become a power in the conference and taken the past nine out of 10 meetings with the Terriers.

Hartford is coming off its largest margin of victory of the season, when it downed UMBC, 67-39, at Chase Arena on Tuesday. It was the Hawks' 19th-straight home win. Danielle Hood led with a game-high 13 points, while Courtney Gomez and Diana Delva recorded 12 points apiece. Erica Beverly was the team's leading rebounder with a season-best 12 boards.

The Hawks have cruised through the conference schedule, rattling off seven straight wins, and the only blemish on their conference record is the loss to the Terriers that came in the conference opener. Dini provided the half-court heroics in a game that saw BU erase a 16-point second-half deficit. The junior guard scored all of her 19 points in the second half, as BU's bench outscored Hartford's, 35-24.

Hood leads the team in scoring with 15.7 points per game, while Beverly is averaging 7.1 rebounds per game to lead the squad. The Hawks have held opponents to 55.0 ppg - a league best - while also maintaining conference-best scoring (+9.0) and rebounding margins (+9.1).

BU is coming off a 76-50 road loss to Albany. In that game, senior Cheri Raffo nailed three treys to surpass 1,000 career points. Classmate Kasey Devine led with a team-high 12 points, while junior Christine Kinneary dished out a game-high eight assists.

Junior Jesyka Burks-Wiley is averaging a team-high 14.2 ppg and 12.9 in league play. Sophomore Aly Hinton and Dini have come on strong in conference action, averaging 11.6 and 10.0 ppg, respectively. BU leads the conference in scoring (69.1 ppg), free throw percentage (.778), 3-point field goal percentage defense (.280) and assist/turnover ratio (1.14).

Following Saturday's contest, BU will return to Case Gym to host Binghamton on Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 7:00 p.m.