Women's Basketball 1/10/2014 4:03:00 PM

OCU at St. Gregory's women's basketball preview

Cara Pugh is averaging 9.8 points and 5.3 rebounds for the Stars this season.

3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11
W.P. Wood Field House in Shawnee, Okla.

THE MATCHUP: Oklahoma City University squares off with St. Gregory's and will look to stay unbeaten in Sooner Athletic Conference play.

ABOUT THE STARS: OCU, ranked No. 3 in NAIA Division I women's basketball, edged No. 16 John Brown (Ark.) 64-58 Thursday at Abe Lemons Arena. The Stars improved to 7-1 overall and 4-0 in SAC play and handed OCU coach Latricia Trammell her 100th career victory at the college level.
Guard Yvonte Neal paced OCU with 20 points on 8-of-13 from the field and added two assists and two steals against John Brown. The 5-foot-7 junior from Spring Valley, Calif., has scored 15 points or more in six of OCU's eight games and has cleared the 20-point plateau three times. Neal leads the Stars in scoring with 16.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game.
Senior Autumn Lau followed with 13 points and eight rebounds of the bench for the Stars. The 5-foot-10 forward from Mount Wolf, Pa., leads the team and the SAC in rebounding, pulling down 10.4 boards per game. Lau is sixth in NAIA Division I with 4.7 offensive rebounds per game and 14th in total rebounds per contest.
Kayla MacKenzie, a senior from Peoria, Ariz., added 12 points, six assists and two rebounds. The 5-foot-6 guard averages 12.3 points, 3.6 assists and 3.3 rebounds per outing. MacKenzie is the Stars' leader in assists per game.
OCU is third in NAIA Division I in offensive rebounds per game (19.4) and total rebound margin (14.1). To see how the Stars stack up statistically with the rest of the NAIA, click here.
The Stars moved to third in the latest national rankings. OCU has been rated in the top 10 in every poll since March 11, 2009 and made the top 25 in all 168 polls since 1999-2000. OCU owns national championships from 1988, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2012. SAC coaches predicted the Stars would win the league title. OCU has won or shared the SAC regular-season crown 14 times, including last season when the Stars became the 10th SAC team to go unbeaten in league play.
OCU owns an all-time record of 35-1 against St. Gregory's. In the last meeting between the two sides, the Stars rolled the Lady Cavaliers 102-54 on Feb. 16, 2013 at Abe Lemons Arena.

ABOUT THE LADY CAVALIERS: St. Gregory's narrowly fell to Southwestern Christian 68-66 Thursday at Pickens-Springer Gymnasium in Bethany, Okla. The Lady Cavaliers fell to 1-9 overall and 0-4 in SAC play.
Kylee Tatum led St. Gregory's with 18 points on 6-of-9 shooting from field and 3-of-4 from 3-point distance. The 5-foot-10 guard averages 10.1 points per game and is fifth in NAIA Division I with a 3-point field goal percentage of 0.50.
Stacy Lee added 14 points, three assists and three steals in 40 minutes of action against Southwestern Christian. The 5-foot-3 guard averages 10.9 points per game and leads St. Gregory's and the SAC with 4.2 assists per contest.
Tori Huff chipped in with 13 points and seven rebounds off the bench for St. Gregory's. The 5-foot-7 guard leads the Lady Cavaliers in scoring with 11.9 points and 4.2 rebounds per outing.
St. Gregory's has been slated to finish sixth in the SAC by league coaches.

ABOUT THE COACHES: Trammell owns a 99-81 record in six seasons as a college head coach. She reeled off a 28-4 record and became conference coach of the year in her first season as OCU head coach in 2012-13. Trammell returned to OCU last season after serving as Western State (Colo.) head coach from 2007-12. As a head coach, Trammell has coached three all-Americans and 17 all-conference selections, including the co-SAC player of the year, Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference player of the year and RMAC West Division freshman of the year. Trammell was assistant coach at OCU from 2005-07. As an assistant at OCU from 2005-07, Trammell mentored the Stars' first WNBA draftee, Mariam Sy of the Washington Mystics, 10 all-conference choices, the SAC player of the year, SAC newcomer of the year and four all-Americans. Trammell also spent time as head coach at Midwest City High School and Denton Bill Ryan High School (Texas).
Josiah White enters his first season as head coach of the Lady Cavaliers. Before taking over at St. Gregory's, White served as an assistant coach at Northern Oklahoma-Enid from 2010-13 and as a student/graduate assistant at Oklahoma Baptist where he was the head junior varsity coach for four years.

QUOTABLE: "She's a rebounding machine. That's one of those things she loves to do is to rebound. I have a lot of confidence in Lau. Coming off the bench and averaging a double-double says a lot. I have some tough players, and she's one of them. I'm glad she got back into a groove." – Trammell on Lau

FOLLOW THE STARS: Fans can keep up on the latest on OCU athletics through several ways.
Help OCU win an NAIA contest and gain more followers on social media in 2013-14. Become a fan of the Oklahoma City University Stars on Facebook by going to www.facebook.com/ocustars.
Become a follower of the OCU Stars on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ocustars.
Check out video of the Stars in action at www.youtube.com/ocustars.
Be sure to catch the OCU Athletics Update video program weekly on ocusports.com, the OCU YouTube Channel or on OCU Athletics' Facebook page. Click here to see the latest edition or see our video channel in the upper right-hand corner of our home page.
Know when the game is happening by calling the OCU athletics hotline at (405) 208-5400. Get conference scores and highlights by calling the SAC Hotline at (405) 878-2110.

ON THE AIR: OCU athletics has partnered with Stretch Internet to provide live and on-demand audio, stats and video of the Stars' games. To listen to the game, visit OCU's Stretch portal by clicking here. Andrew Himes will provide the play-by-play.
St. Gregory's will provide live stats of the game. To follow the live stats, click here.

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