@FGC U _ W BB Game Note s
SCOUTING THE no. 5 seed • The Bears of Mercer are 17-13 this season and finished the Atlantic Sun slate with a mark of 9-9 to capture the fifth seed. The Bears defeated Jacksonville 59-36 in Jacksonville on Tuesday to advance to the semifinals. • As a team, the Bears average 64.6 points per game this season, while allowing opponents to 64.4 points per contest. The Bears have successfully converted 40.7 percent of shots from the field and 26.7 percent of shots from long range. Bear foes are shooting 38.5 percent this season with a 34.0 percent clip from beyond-the-arc. The Bears average just 11.8 turnovers per game, while dishing out 14.1 assists and grabbing 5.3 steals. • The Bears boast a versatile lineup with six players to watch this season. Offensively, the team is led by three Preseason All-Atlantic Sun Team members in junior guards Precious Bridges and Brianna Williams and senior guard Kendra Grant. Bridges has averaged a team-high 15.2 points per games this season and has grabbed 38 steals but did not see the court against FGCU in the teams’ first meeting. Williams adds 12.9 points per game and currently leads the conference in career 20+ point games. Sharnea Boykin has facilitated the offense this season with 186 assists and ranks 11th in the nation in assists per game. Defensively, Teanna Robinson currently ranks sixth in the nation with 3.62 blocks per game and pulls down 10 rebounds per game.
• Collectively, the Bears rank first in the conference with an assist to turnover ratio of 1.19 and blocked shots at 5.1 per game. The team also produces the fewest number of turnovers per game in the conference (11.9) and holds foes to just 65.3 points per game for the second least in the A-Sun. • After missing the majority of the conference season after getting her appendix taken out midseason, Bridges was not named to the AllConference team. However, Kendra Grant earned a spot on the All-Conference Second Team and Teanna Robinson was named Defensive Player of the Year. • The Bears earned the no. 3 seed in last season’s Atlantic Sun Conference tournament after finishing the season with a record of 20-12 overall and 13-5 in conference. This season, the Bears were selected to finish third in the conference preseason poll, behind just FGCU and Stetson but finished fifth in the seeding and sixth in the standings.
MATCHING UP TEAM COMPARISON record streak rpi points per game points allowed scoring margin field goal percentage 3-pt percentage free throw percentage rebounds per game rebound margin assists per game turnovers per game assist:turnover ratio steals per game
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FGCU MU 24-7 17-13 W10 W1 60 195 70.5 64.9 59.5 64.4 +11.0 +0.3 .414 .407 .351 .267 .666 .724 35.3 38.9 -3.9 -1.5 14.5 14.1 13.3 11.8 1.1 1.2 9.6 6.1
INDIVIDUAL LEADERS FGCU MERCER scoring Hansen, 14.1 Bridges, 15.2 field goal % Hansen, .490 Robinson, .627 3-pt %
Moore, .492
Grant, .280
rebounding
Hansen, 7.1
Robinson, 10.0
assists steals
Dunson, 96
Boykin, 64
Hansen, 60
Bridges, 38
blocks
Knight, 88
Robinson, 112
@FGCUEagles