Women's Basketball 2/18/2015 2:57:00 PM

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

Stars support Play 4Kay initiative to bring attention to fight vs. cancer

Yvonte Neal ranks 27th in the NAIA at 2.40 3-pointers per game.

6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19
Abe Lemons Arena in the Freede Center

THE MATCHUP: Oklahoma City University will put on pink uniforms in an effort to raise awareness towards the fight against cancer in its Sooner Athletic Conference contest against St. Gregory's.
Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students, while OCU students, faculty and staff are allowed into all regular-season OCU athletics events for free with their ID. If the Stars score 70 points, fans will get a prize from Raising Cane's. For the OCU athletics visitors guide, click here.

ABOUT THE STARS: Oklahoma City took its first conference loss this season 66-62 to Oklahoma Baptist on Saturday in Shawnee, Okla. The Stars (18-2, 13-1 SAC) had its overall winning streak snapped at 18 and its string of victories in conference play ended at 19.
Marisha Wallace, a 6-foot-2 senior from Midwest City, Okla., provided OCU with 15 points and eight rebounds. She shot 7-for-12 from the field. Wallace contributes 14.4 points and 7.8 rebounds with a 54.3 percent field-goal percentage.
Rateska Brown, a 5-6 senior from Alvin, S.C., posted 12 points, four rebounds and three assists Saturday. Brown stuffs the stat sheet with 19.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.95 steals per game plus 37.6 percent shooting from 3-point range. Janay Borum, a 5-2 senior from Upper Marlboro, Md., chipped in 11 points and five rebounds. She averages 7.8 points, 3.0 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 2.68 steals per game. Borum leads the NAIA in assists a game.
OCU leads NAIA Division I with 18.5 assists per contest. To see how OCU compares statistically with the rest of NAIA Division I, click here.
The Stars maintained their No. 2 spot in the NAIA Division I rankings for the eighth week in a row. OCU continued streaks of being ranked in the top 10 in every poll since March 11, 2009 and making the top 25 for the 187th consecutive time since 1999-2000. Oklahoma City owns national championships from 1988, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2012, 2014. SAC coaches predicted the Stars would win the league title. OCU has won or shared the SAC regular-season crown 15 times, including the last five in a row.
Oklahoma City upped its all-time record to 38-1 vs. St. Gregory's with a 105-65 victory Jan. 24 in Shawnee, Okla. Ouleymatou Coulibaly amassed 17 points and 19 rebounds.

ABOUT THE CAVALIERS: Southwestern Assemblies of God (Texas) squeaked past St. Gregory's 49-44 on Saturday in Shawnee, Okla. St. Gregory's (3-20, 2-12 SAC) has dropped 10 of its last 11 games.
Kelsie Howgard, a 5-10 freshman, picked up 15 points, four rebounds, four assists and five 3-pointers while playing all 40 minutes. Howgard records 8.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists a contest. Stacy Lee, a 5-3 senior, had 13 points, seven assists, three steals and four treys. She averages 14.2 points, 4.2 assists and 1.78 steals this season.
St. Gregory's 8.4 3-pointers per game ranks fourth nationally. St. Gregory's had been ticketed to finish 10th in the SAC in the preseason.

ABOUT THE COACHES: Latricia Trammell was the 2014 NAIA Division I Phyllis Holmes coach of the year. Trammell has a 73-10 record in her third season as OCU head coach. She guided the Stars to a 16-0 record in conference play in 2012-13. She was OCU assistant to Rob Edmisson in 2005-07, then became Western State (Colo.) head coach from 2007-12. Trammell's college head-coaching record is 138-86 in her eighth year. Trammell has coached six all-Americans and 23 all-conference selections, including two SAC players of the year, an SAC newcomer of the year, Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference player of the year and RMAC West Division freshman of the year. As an assistant at OCU, 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.
Josiah White enters his second season as coach of St. Gregory's with a 7-44 record. He led the Cavaliers to the SAC Tournament quarterfinals last season, beating Southwestern Assemblies of God (Texas) 67-66 in overtime. He has helped coach three NAIA all-Americans and two NJCAA all-Americans and has been part of six national tournament teams.

QUOTABLE: "We are now awake after receiving our first loss. We had a great team meeting yesterday. It's hard to tell girls when we haven't lost that we needed to improve and we needed to correct some little things that make the big things happen. After the game, they said, 'We know. We got it.' Sometimes it takes that to get refocused and reloaded." – Trammell

FOLLOW THE STARS: Fans can keep up on the latest on OCU athletics through several ways.
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.
Fans can sign up to receive OCU Athletics SMS text message alerts, including the latest score updates and headlines from the Stars, by going here.
Fans can sign up to receive the latest OCU athletic headlines via e-mail by going here.
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.

ON THE AIR: OCU athletics has partnered with Stretch Internet to provide live and on-demand audio of the Stars' games. To watch, listen to or follow the game on live stats, visit OCU's Stretch portal by clicking here. Andrew Himes will provide the play-by-play.
The live audio and stats will be provided free of charge, while the cost to see the video will be $7.95. A men's basketball season pass that allows you to see all the Stars' home games this season costs $29.95, while a 2014-15 all-sports pass costs $79.95.

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Players Mentioned

#21 Ouleymatou Coulibaly: C; 6' 2"; Senior

#45 Marisha Wallace: C; 6' 2"; Senior

#3 Rateska Brown: G; 5' 6"; Senior

#11 Janay Borum: G; 5' 2"; Senior

Players Mentioned

#21 Ouleymatou Coulibaly
: 6' 2"; Senior
: C

#45 Marisha Wallace
: 6' 2"; Senior
: C

#3 Rateska Brown
: 5' 6"; Senior
: G

#11 Janay Borum
: 5' 2"; Senior
: G