Shaw University Tournament Preview

It has been another tremendous season for the #2 Shaw women’s basketball team.  The Lady Bears come into the 2005 South Atlantic Regional ranked #2 in the country, their highest ranking ever.  The Lady Bears won their third-straight CIAA Tournament Champions.

The 2004-05 edition of the Lady Bears may be the best in history.  Shaw is 29-1 coming into the tournament and has won an astounding 23-straight games.  The Lady Bears are quick and can get up and down the floor, but more impressive is their defense, as they force opponents into an average of 30 turnovers per game.  This year’s squad features the senior trio of Kiarsha Curtis, Joy Hairston and Jessica Hawkins.

Curtis was named to the All-CIAA for the second-straight year.  The senior from Capital Heights, MD, who was named 2005 CIAA Tournament MVP, after being named tournament MVP in 2004, is averaging 17.7 points per game, good for second on the team.  She is shooting 40 percent from three-point range, which leads the CIAA and ranks her 12th in the nation.  She also averages 3.8 steals per game, which is second in the conference (behind Hawkins), good for 13th in the nation.  Curtis has scored in double figures in all but three games and has scored 20 or more points 12 times.

Hairston is an All-CIAA performer as well.  The Durham, NC native, who averaged 9.6 points per game last season, is instant offense off the bench.  She is third in the conference in scoring averaging 18.7, which ranks her 29th in the nation.  She has redefined her game more and instead of being an outside and three-point shooter, she has worked and developed her low post game.  At 6-1, she plays big in the post, but has the quickness of a guard, which makes her very hard to stop.  She is shooting 54 percent from the field and can still shoot it from long distance, connecting on 38 percent of her three’s.

Hawkins, the 2004-05 CIAA Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, is also an All-CIAA performer.  After winning the Defensive Player of the Year award last year, she again leads the conference in steals (4.4), which also ranks her third in the nation and field goal percentage (.604).  She is averaging 11.0 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game.  Twice this year she has dished out 10 assists in a game, has had five or more steals in a game 11 times and has scored in double figures 16 times.

The catalyst behind the success offensively of the three aforementioned players as well as the team as a whole is newcomer Nastassia Boucicault.  The junior from Brooklyn, NY has had an immediate impact from day one.  In her first game against Columbia College she scored 13 points and handed out 12 assists.  Seven times, the All-CIAA performer has dished out 10 or more assists.  She leads the conference in that category (6.4), which ranks her 10th in the nation.  She averages 12.9 points and 3.6 steals per game, good for 4th in the conference and 10th in the nation.