Gameday Central
Game Notes vs. Valparaiso

DETROIT (1/22/2014) -- The Titans will get on a bus for just the second time since December 7 as the University of Detroit Mercy women's basketball team will hit the road for three straight and five of the next seven starting with Valparaiso on Thursday, January 23. Game time is set for 8:05 p.m. (EST) at the ARC.

The road swing will also see UDM in Milwaukee on Saturday and at Youngstown State next Wednesday.

Titan fans can follow every UDM game this season through the women's basketball GAMEDAY CENTRAL page located on the Titans Athletic Website that will keep fans one click away from all the action. This page will feature links for live stats (audio and video when applicable) as well as links for all the latest info while also making it easy to find the Titans on social media and to purchase photos and game tickets. The Game Day Central page also carries all the information on each opponent from who is leading the all-time series to who won the last game.

The Titans enter the game at 3-14, 0-4 in the Horizon League, as they are on the prowl for their first HL win, while the Crusaders have dropped eight in a row and are 2-15 overall and also 0-4 in the conference.

Detroit continues to be one of the top scoring teams in the league paced by senior Senee Shearer, who leads the conference with 21.1 points per game. She reached the 1,000-point plateau last week and is 19th in school history in scoring with 1,020 points. Freshman Haleigh Ristovski is coming off a career game with 11 points and five assists against UIC, while fellow rookie Lizzy Connors netted a season-high eight points and defensively, junior Brie Wilcox recorded a career-best four blocks.

UDM saw the injury bug return – or did it ever leave – as freshman Reyna Montgomery missed the last game with an ailment leaving the red, white and blue to use its 12th different starting line-up of the year.

After the game, Detroit will join the men in Milwaukee as the Titans face the Panthers on Friday night, while the women will square off against UWM on Saturday.

DETROIT VS. VALPARAISO
Detroit has won four in a row and eight of the last 10 to take an 11-6 lead in the overall series. UDM is 5-3 all time in the ARC, dropping two of its last three visits.

Despite being just about 245 miles apart from each other, the two programs met just four times before Valparaiso joined the Horizon League in 2008.

ABOUT THE CRUSADERS
Valparaiso (2-15, 0-4 HL) enters the match-up on an eight-game losing streak which came after winning two in a row. Valpo also started the year with seven-straight setbacks.

The Crusaders have a small roster playing just 7-8 people most nights. They are led in scoring by Charae Richardson's 11.1 points per game and she also tops the team with 3.2 assists per game to go with 4.1 rebounds per night. Sharon Karungi is tallying 10.2 points and a team-high 7.5 rebounds, while Jessi Wiedemann is posting 9.2 ppg., 3.9 rpg., 2.2 apg., and has a team-high 24 steals.

Valparaiso ranks last in the HL in scoring (59.9), and three-point field goal percentage (25.3%), while allowing 76.5 points - eighth in the league.

HORIZON LEAGUE HISTORY
The Titans are 212-204 all-time in the Horizon League with the 212 victories the third most in league history trailing only Green Bay's 274 and former member Butler's 227.

UDM has won two regular season titles claiming the 1987 crown with a 10-2 record and the 1997 championship as senior Autumn Rademacher led Detroit to a 14-2 mark. The Titans also finished that year winning their only conference tournament.

LEADING THE COUNTRY
Senior Senee Shearer is currently fourth in the nation with 3.29 three-point field goals per game. Shearer – who had a streak of eight straight games with 20 or more points – has 56 trifectas on the year, tied for seventh in the nation and just five away from the top spot in Syracuse's Brianna Butler.

Her 56 three-point field goals are also 13 more than the next player in the HL in Wright State's Kim Demmings. .

Shearer is also seventh in the league in three-point field-goal percentage (32.4%).

SHEARER NAMED TO 2014 NANCY LIEBERMAN AWARD WATCH LIST
Numbers are one thing, but recognition among the greats of college basketball is another as senior Senee Shearer was named to the 2014 Nancy Lieberman Award Watch List by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Jan. 15.

The award recognizes the top point guard in women's NCAA Division I college basketball. Candidates exhibit the floor leadership, play-making and ball-handling skills of Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman.

Shearer was joined by 28 other players on the initial watch list, which includes the likes of Odyssey Sims of Baylor, Bria Hartley of Connecticut, Duke's Chelsea Gray, Amber Orrange of Stanford and Tennessee's Ariel Massengale. She is also the only player from the Horizon League as well as from a school in Michigan on the list.

The Hall of Fame appointed a premier Selection Committee made up of top college basketball personnel including media members, head coaches, sports information directors and Hall of Famers to review the candidates. The list will be narrowed down to a final 20 in February, then final five by March.

The Lieberman Award winner will be announced during Final Four weekend activities.

Previous winners of the Nancy Lieberman Award include last year's recipient Skylar Diggins (Notre Dame), Sue Bird (Connecticut), Renee Montgomery (Connecticut) and Diana Taurasi (Connecticut).

AMONG THE LEADERS
UDM is fourth in the Horizon League and 100th in the nation in scoring at 71.4 ppg.

SHEARER NETS 1,000
The UDM 1,000-point club added another member as senior Senee Shearer became the 19th player in school history to record 1,000 career points.

Shearer now has 1,020 points and is ready to climb higher on that list as she is just 13 points away from 18th place and 18 shy of 17th.

Below is a list of people ahead of her in scoring in Titan history.
14th Jeanie Hill - 1,199 - 1994-97
15th Mandy Chandler - 1,181 - 1987-91
16th Lindsey Pasquinzo - 1,143 - 2002-06
17th Katie Solner - 1,038 - 2002-06
18th Mary Lillie - 1,033 - 1978-82
19th Senee Shearer - 1,020 - 2010-pre.

YOUR LEADING HL SCORER IS...
Senior Senee Shearer as her 24 points against UIC has her at the top of the Horizon League with 2.1 points per game. That number also ranks 24th in the nation.

She has already scored 358 points this season in 17 games, more than the 231 she totaled in 20 contests last year - she missed the first 14 games of her junior season recovering from a torn ACL that she suffered in the 2012 Horizon League Championship - and just nine points shy of the 367 she posted in 33 games as a sophomore.

Her 358 total points is second in the HL and 25th in the nation.

ON THE DL
Sophomore Rosanna Reynolds will miss the rest of the season after suffering a knee injury early in the game at Western Michigan.

Reynolds was selected to the Horizon League All-Newcomer Team last year after starting all 34 games and averaging a team-high 35.3 minutes per game, tallying 7.8 points – fifth on the team – along with 3.3 rebounds, and a team-high 4.0 assists per game (135).

The Titans have also seen Tayelor McCalister and Minisha Frederick-Childress miss five games with an injury. Megan Galloway missed the Eastern Michigan game with an ankle ailment and Ellisha Crosby has missed the last five contests and is day-to-day with a leg injury.

The latest person on the DL is Megan Hatter as she missed the last three games with a leg injury as well as freshman Reyna Montgomery who sat out in UDM's last game against UIC.

All told, the injured Titans have missed a total of 33 games on the season.

MIX & MATCH
Due to the injuries Detroit has racked up this year, the Titans have used 12 different starting line-ups through their first 17 games.

In fact, with senior Megan Hatter missing the last three games, no Titan will start every game this season.

UDM has seen 12 of its 13 players on the roster start at least one contest, with the lone exception in senior walk-on Abby McCollum who was just officially added to the roster in mid-December.

RISTOVSKI'S BIG GAME
Titan rookie Haleigh Ristovski is doing a good job of protecting the ball and she is coming off one of her best games on the season.

Against UIC, she started and played all 40 minutes netting a season-high 11 points and handing out a season-best five assists with three rebounds and a steal.

She currently has a 28-7 assist-to-turnover ratio on the year and is also doing a good job hitting the glass at 3.8 rebounds per game, with a season-high 10 caroms at Wright State.

AERIAL ASSULT
A three-point threat might not be sufficient enough to describe Senee Shearer's game.

In her career, Shearer has attempted 883 shots and 571 of them have been from behind the arc. That means 64.6% of her career looks have been from downtown. Her 173 three-point attempts on the season is also second in the country behind Oregon's Katelyn Looper's (186).

Shearer also has 190 career threes, fourth in school history and two shy of Lindsey Pasquinzo's (2002-06) 192 for third.

She is on pace to take over the category lead trailing head coach Autumn Rademacher (1993-97) by 11 for second and school record-holder Michelle James (1998-02) by 27 (217).

IT'S TAY TIME
Tayelor McCalister had a fine start to her sophomore year with career highs in nearly every category in her first four games, before an injury forced her out of five straight.

She returned to the hardwood against Chicago State on Dec. 7 and handed out five assists, while scoring seven points and tying her career best with four steals.

Her offense has once again picked up in the last three games as she had a career-high 17 points at Wright State on Jan. 5, adding seven boards in just 24 minutes. She recorded 11 points, five rebounds and four assists against Cleveland State on Jan. 9, and has had nine and eight points, respectively, in the last two games against Oakland and UIC, adding a pair of helpers in both contests.

She nearly had a triple-double against Eastern Michigan on Dec. 15 with eight points, a career-high eight rebounds and nine assists.

Against Michigan on Nov. 16, McCalister was in double figures with 14 points (7-9 FG) to go with six rebounds and four assists.

On the year, she is averaging 9.6 points - fourth on the team - a team-high 3.4 assists and 1.6 steals as well as 3.8 rebounds per game.