University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball players Jasmine Joyner and Keiana Gilbert received separate Southern Conference player of the week honors for games through Monday.
The 6-foot-2 Joyner earned her second consecutive such honor from the league office after averaging 14 points, 9.5 rebounds and 6.5 blocks in victories over Furman and Wofford, making 13 of her 22 shots. She had eight blocked shots against Wofford, tying her school record. She leads the nation with 4.2 blocks per game, which has helped the Mocs lead the country in that category at 6.7 per contest.
For the season she averages a league-best 9.2 rebounds per game in addition to 12.5 points for the 16-7 Mocs.
Gilbert was chosen as the SoCon player of the week by College Sports Madness after averaging 13.5 points and five rebounds in the two wins. She averages 12 points per game for the season, which ranks ninth in the conference.
Terriers set records
The Wofford men’s team set an NCAA record for 3-point efficiency in Monday’s win over Virginia Military Institute, connecting on 17 of its 21 attempts.
The 81 percent mark is the best in history for any team attempting at least 20 shots.
Freshman Fletcher Magee led the Terriers by going 9-for-10 from deep, making his first seven attempts and scoring a career-high 34 points.
“If I got the ball and got a shot up, I felt like it was going to go in,” Magee said. “My teammates did a great job getting me the ball. We made a couple early and then we all started to feel it. It was fun.”
He was the SoCon men’s player of the week, averaging 20.3 points and hitting 17 of his 20 3 tries as the Paladins went 2-1 with wins over the Keydets and Samford and a loss to UTC.
SoCon separation
The top teams on each side of the conference have started to distance themselves from the rest of the pack as the league tournament nears. It begins three weeks from Thursday in Asheville, N.C.
The top five men’s teams are pretty set, although their final positions are still to be determined. UTC is 11-1 in the SoCon and has a 2 1/2-game lead over East Tennessee State and a 3 1/2-game advantage over Furman. Mercer and Wofford each stands at 8-4, three games ahead of sixth-place UNC Greensboro.
Mercer and Samford are 8-1 on the women’s side, a game ahead of the Mocs. ETSU is a game behind UTC at 6-3. Furman is 4-5 but has lost four straight to each of the four teams ahead of it in the conference.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.