R-N Schedule I Stats

TCNJ Schedule I Stats

NJAC Tournament Central

EWING, N.J. (February 20, 2019) – Tomorrow night the fourth-seeded Rutgers University-Newark women's basketball team will travel to top-seeded TCNJ for a New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Championship Tournament Semifinal matchup at 7 p.m.

The Scarlet Raiders enter the contest with an overall record of 14-12 and regular season mark in conference play of 10-8 while the Lions are 17-8 and went 15-3 in league play to secure the regular season title.

R-N hosted fifth-seeded Rutgers-Camden on Saturday night in The Golden Dome and earned a semifinal berth by pulling away from the Scarlet Raptors late in the third quarter before securing a big 65-47 win.

Senior Faith Ashby led the Raiders with 20 points and three assists while junior Hannah Ashby had an incredibly efficient offensive game. The veteran guard poured in 19 points on 5-for-7 shooting from the field, including 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, in addition to a 5-for-6 performance at the free throw line. Junior center Comfort Akinbo added a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.

The Lions received a bye into the semifinals.

PREVIOUS MATCHUPS
On December 1 Rutgers-Newark traveled to TCNJ for the teams' first contest. The hosts used a big second quarter to take an eight-point advantage into the second half that they would not relinquish.

Both sides struggled with their shooting, but the Raiders really had a tough time shooting from downtown (3-for-12, 25.0%) and at the charity stripe (9-for-19, 47.4%).

In the second matchup, R-N hosted TCNJ on January 28 in a game that went down to the wire. Despite leading by as many as eight in the fourth quarter, the Scarlet Raiders fell 45-43 as the Lions staged a big comeback and edged the home team.

Even as Newark held TCNJ to just 30.4% shooting from the field, another poor performance at the free throw line proved to be a culprit once again as the team shot just 3-of-8 (37.5%) from the stripe.

CLASH OF STRENGTHS
This will be a classic clash of strengths as the Raiders come into this contest with the second-best scoring defense and 3-point defense as well as the fourth-best field goal percentage defense.

On the other side, the Lions enter the night with the top scoring margin, third-best field goal percentage, and fourth-best scoring offense.

As in the first two games, a potential Achilles heel to look out for with the visitors will be their free throw shooting with R-N ranking last (57.6%) in the NJAC and TCNJ (68.3%) placing second.

TCNJ
The regular season league champions come into the semifinal matchup well-rested and riding a seven-game winning streak, all in NJAC play. The Lions are 9-2 at home so far this season.

TCNJ featured three players averaging double-digit scoring in Shannon Devitt (14.4), Jen Byrne (13.8), and Sam Famulare (10.6). Devitt is also the team's top rebounder at 12.7 per contest while Elle Cimilluca dishes out a squad-high 3.9 assists per contest.