PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley women's basketball team returns to the state of South Carolina for the second time in three years when the Braves travel to Rock Hill, S.C. for the Winthrop Classic Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
BU (1-1 overall) looks to rebound from a 59-58 home loss to Eastern Illinois Tuesday, opening a four-game road swing with three games in three days. Bradley returns to Palmetto State for the first time since falling to College of Charleston in the second round of the inaugural Women's Basketball Invitational in March 2010.
The Braves open play at the Winthrop Classic Friday at 5 p.m. (CST) against tournament-host Winthrop and will also face 2011 NCAA Tournament participant Stetson (Saturday) and Niagara (Sunday). Both Saturday and Sunday's games are scheduled to start at noon (CST).
Bradley will be playing three games in three days for the first time taking part in the Aruba Sunshine Shootout in Oranjestad, Aruba to open the 1989-90 season with Sunday's game against Niagara concluding a stretch in which BU will play five games in 10 days.
Winthrop (1-0 overall) opened the season with an 80-66 victory at Troy and Friday's matchup will be the home opener for the Eagles, who finished 13-18 overall. The Braves have never played any of the current members of the Big South Conference.
Stetson (1-1 overall) is coming off a 71-57 loss at Florida. The Hatters won the Atlantic Sun Tournament last season and finished the 2010-11 season with a 20-13 record. Bradley and Stetson will be meeting for the first time since the 1993-94 season.
Niagara heads into the weekend with an 0-1 record after suffering a 65-54 home loss to Buffalo in the team's opener. The Braves have not faced one of the current members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference since wrapping up play in Aruba in 1989 against Fairfield.
Senior Leah Kassing (Mt. Sterling, Ill./Brown County) has scored in double figures in four consecutive games and leads the Braves in scoring at 13.5 points per game. She is shooting 57.9 percent from the field in addition to pulling down seven rebounds a game.
Sophomore Catie O'Leary (Janesville, Wis./Parker/Wisconsin) is averaging 12.0 points per game, while senior forward MacKenzie Westcott (Williamsburg, Iowa/Williamsburg) had 11 points and 11 rebounds Tuesday against Eastern Illinois for her fifth career double-double.
Bradley has not allowed fewer than 60 points in the first two games of a season since 2007-08 and Tuesday's one-point loss to Eastern Illinois was BU's first one-point loss since dropping a 78-79 overtime decision to I-74 rival Illinois State on Jan. 4, 2004. The Braves had not lost a home game by one point since head coach Paula Buscher's first season on The Hilltop in 2000-01.
Live stats and a free audio stream for all three games will be available on the Bradley Athletics website (www.BradleyBraves.com). A subscription video stream is available for Friday's matchup with Winthrop at www.bigsouthsports.com
The Braves close out a four-game road swing Wednesday with a 7 p.m. game at Northern Illinois in DeKalb, Ill.
