FLORENCE - The Francis Marion women’s basketball team has been here before. Sort of.
With a second-place finish in regular-season play, the 18th-ranked and No. 2 seed Patriots host No. 3 seed USC Aiken tonight in an opening-round game at Smith University Center.
While the high seed is nothing new for FMU, the Patriots having homecourt advantage is a change.
For years, the PBC tournament has been played at one location.
“We’re excited to be able to play in front of the hometown fans,” said FMU coach Heather Macy, whose Patriots are 14-1 at home this season. “We hope the fans can come out, cheer us on and give us a true homecourt advantage.”
FMU leads the all-time series with the Pacers 44-19, including four straight wins. Earlier this season, the Patriots won 69-65 in Florence and 79-77 in Aiken.
The Patriots (24-3 overall, 16-2 in conference) finished the regular season by winning 14 of their last 15 games and finished second in the PBC’s East Division standings behind Lander, narrowly missing out on the program’s third consecutive PBC regular-season championship.
Macy’s squad has also reached the century mark in each of its last two games, the first time the Patriots have scored 100 points in consecutive conference contests. But Macy said her team has barely scratched the surface.
“There’s a lot more that needs to be done,” she said. “We wanna control when our last practice day is.
“We haven’t peaked yet.”
Junior Shannon Singleton-Bates continues to lead FMU in scoring with a 16.3 points per game average, while senior guard Eboni Fields is averaging 12.4 ppg, senior forward Nicole Mealing 10.7 ppg, and senior guard Shana Franks 10.3 ppg.
Junior point guard Robin Colbert is averaging 8.0 points, 5.3 assists, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.7 steals per game.
Macy is most impressed, however, with the play of bench players Tiahana Bowens, Simone Trice and Courtney Mealing.
Said Macy. “People who have been playing good minutes are starting to score, and that’s raised our scoring average.”
Forward Catherine Cain posts 12.5 points and 5.9 rebounds per game for USC Aiken, who finished third in the PBC East standings.
Macy said her team will not look past the Pacers — or any other team in the conference, though another shot at Lander looks tempting.
“We haven’t thought about Lander until the next game on the schedule, just like we haven’t thought about USC Aiken until now,” said Macy, whose Patriots are 14-16 all-time in the confernce tournament. “It would be cool for the fans, however, for us to play Lander one more time for the Peach Belt title.”
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