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MOON TOWNSHIP, PA. - The LIU Brooklyn women's basketball team has the second of two games in Pennsylvania Monday night, against the top team in the Northeast Conference, Robert Morris. The Blackbirds will take on the Colonials, Monday, February 17 at 7 p.m.
• Heading into the final three weeks of the regular season, LIU sits in eighth place in the NEC, in what will be the final playoff spot. With only Robert Morris and Mount St. Mary's having clinched a playoff spot, the other eight teams all have a shot to make the post-season tournament, and a lot of movement is expected in the standings in the next 30 days.
• When LIU hosted Robert Morris in the Steinberg Wellness Center earlier this year, the visiting Colonials took the win, 66-52. RMU's Artemis Spanou led all players with 23 points, but the Blackbirds snapped one of her more impressive streaks. The senior had tallied 24 straight double-doubles against NEC opponents, spanning back to the start of her junior season. LIU held her to just eight rebounds, stopping the double double, and becoming the first NEC team since 2012 to limit her in that way. Senior Cleandra Roberts led LIU with 15 points, along with six rebounds and two steals. Sophomore Sophie Bhasin had 13 points, while freshman Aleisha Myers chipped in 10 points, going 3-for-6 from behind the three-point line. Senior Fanny Cavallo added eight points, a team-high eight rebounds, two blocks and two steals, while junior Letava Whippy had a game-high six assists, and senior Courtney Sullivan added a career-high four assists.
• The Blackbirds come in to Monday's matchup on a two game winning streak. The LIU Brooklyn women's basketball team had a huge win Saturday afternoon in DeGol Arena, as the Blackbirds beat Saint Francis U. in the final seconds of the game, 69-66. The Blackbirds had two players with double-doubles in the win, as senior Cleandra Roberts had 23 points and 11 rebounds along with four steals, while senior Fanny Cavallo had 14 points and 13 rebounds, and a game-high three blocks. Sophomore Sophie Bhasin added 19 points, while junior Letava Whippy had eight rebounds, three points, four assists and two steals. Junior Kelly Robinson tied her season high with nine assists in the win.
ALL-TIME SERIES
• The Colonials hold an all-time advantage, 38-16 against the Blackbirds. RMU has won the last four against LIU, and 12 of the last 13. Robert Morris is 21-6 against the Blackbirds at home.
SCOUTING THE COLONIALS
• Robert Morris came into the season as the prohibitive favorite, were picked to win the league in the preseason poll, and so far, they have lived up to the billing. The Colonials sit at 15-9 overall, 11-2 in the Northeast Conference. RMU's only two NEC losses this season have come on the road, as they lost at Sacred Heart in January, 71-57, and at Wagner in early February, 67-51. The Colonials avenged the Sacred Heart loss last Monday, as RMU clinched the first NEC playoff berth of the year with a 90-66 routing of the Pioneers.
• RMU has won nine games in a row at home, and is 107-30 (.781) at the Sewall Center since 2004-05, including 72-15 (.828) in NEC games.
• Senior forward Artemis Spanou leads the team in nearly every possible category. Spanou has set two NEC and six RMU career records along with three RMU game records so far this season.
• Spanou is averaging 19.1 points per game, fourth in the NEC. She leads the league in rebounds per game, pulling down 14.8, five more than her closest competitor. She's also second in the NEC in field goal percentage, behind LIU's
Fanny Cavallo (.517) and just ahead of
Cleandra Roberts (.488), as she makes 50.3 percent of her shots taken. Despite the appearance that she does it all, Spanou also shares well. She's sixth in the NEC in assists per game, dishing out 3.78 per game on average. She's also fourth in conference in blocks per game (1.13.), and cleans up the glass on both offense and defense, leading the NEC in offensive rebounds per game (5.48), and defensive rebounds per game (9.09).
• Freshman Anna Niki Stamolamprou had a season-high 20 points against St. Francis Brooklyn, and averages 12.3 points per game.
• Freshman Rebeca Navarro tied the team record for three-point percentage at .857 (6-7) against Sacred Heart.
MANIC MONDAYS
• Robert Morris has struggled on Mondays, suffering three of the team's nine losses on Mondays, including both NEC losses. The Colonials are also 3-4 in games that start after 6 p.m.
CLE CHASING 1,000
• Senior
Cleandra Roberts has been on a scoring tear this season, and she currently averages 19.4 points per game, third in the Northeast Conference.
• Her scoring output this season has increased so drastically from her first three seasons at LIU that she's quickly closing the gap on the 1,000 point mark.
• In her freshman year, she averaged 4.1 points per game, scoring 114 all season. In her sophomore season, it was 4.6 points per game, scoring 144 total. In 2012-13, her junior year, she more than doubled those numbers, averaging 9.3 points per game, and scoring 223 over the season. Coming into her senior year, she had 481 career points.
• Nothing in her past compares to the scoring numbers she has put up this season. So far this year, Roberts has averaged 19.4 points per game, scoring 466 points so far.
• Her current career total sits at 947 points, just 53 points shy of the 1,000-point mark, with five regular season games left, and the potential of more with the NEC Tournament on the horizon.
• She would become the 18th player in LIU Brooklyn women's basketball history to surpass the 1,000-point mark.
LATE SEASON FIRSTS
• LIU's come-from-behind win over Sacred Heart was the first time this year that the Blackbirds won a game when they had been trailing at the half.
• In the Blackbird win over CCSU on the road, LIU never let CCSU lead. It was the first time this season LIU hasn't trailed in a game.
• LIU's win over Saint Francis U. was the first time all season that the Blackbirds trailed with 5:00 on the clock, and rallied to take the win.