FGCU women’s basketball will welcome a likely Top-10 opponent to Southwest Florida when the Eagles face Ohio State in a first-round game of the Gulf Coast Showcase. Tournament promoters announced the game will tip-off at 5 p.m. ET on Friday, Nov. 25 at Germain Arena. The game time has been set as to not conflict with the FGCU-Long Beach State men’s game later that evening on FGCU’s campus.
Ohio State returns First-Team All-American Kelsey Mitchell (26.1 points per game last season) and will add the services of two transfers that sat out last season per NCAA rules. Junior forward Stephanie Mavunga will become eligible after transferring from North Carolina and sophomore guard Sierra Calhoun joins the squad after playing at Duke. Both players were McDonald’s All-Americans coming out of high school.
Coming off a record-breaking 33-win season, FGCU will be bolstered by two transfers of its own. Mikala McGhee will be immediately eligible after playing at George Mason and China Dow becomes eligible after sitting out last season following a transfer from Middle Tennessee. FGCU has won six straight Atlantic Sun regular season titles and completed its fourth perfect league season in five years in 2015-16.
The winner of the FGCU-Ohio State will advance to Saturday’s semifinals and will play either last season’s national runner-up Syracuse or defending Atlantic 10 champion George Washington.
The women’s tournament first-round schedule will be as follows:
11 a.m. – Baylor vs. Kent State
1:30 p.m. – DePaul vs. Western Kentucky
5 p.m. – Ohio State vs. FGCU
7:30 p.m. – Syracuse vs. George Washington