STOCKTON, Calif. – The Pacific women's basketball team (14-10, 7-6 WCC) is on the road for the final time in the 2019-20 season, taking on San Diego and BYU in a pivotal weekend of West Coast Conference action while looking to avenge earlier losses in Stockton to both teams.
 
GAME INFO
 
Matchup: Pacific (14-10, 7-6 WCC) at San Diego (14-9, 8-4 WCC)
Date: Thursday, February 13, 2020 
Location: San Diego, Calif.
Time: 6:00 p.m.
Venue: Jenny Craig Pavilion
Links: Live Stats | Live Stream | Listen
 
Matchup: Pacific (14-10, 7-6 WCC) at BYU (13-9, 8-4 WCC)
Date: Saturday, February 15, 2020 
Location: Provo, Utah
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Venue: Marriott Center
Links: Live Stats | Live Stream
 
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW       

• The Tigers are led down low by Katrina McClane Award Watch List honoree Brooklyn McDavid, who has registered a double-digit scoring performance in 19 of the Tigers' 24 outings this year while averaging 15.0 points per game this season. 
• Valerie Higgins became the first player this season to win two WCC Player of the Week awards after chasing a triple double (29 points, 11 rebounds, nine steals) at San Francisco on December 30. Higgins, a Preseason All-WCC selection and the reigning WCC Defensive Player of the Year, is second in the WCC with ten double doubles, eight of which have come in conference play. Higgins has now logged 24 overall for her Pacific career – tying Jane Romberg (1980-85) for fifth in program history – and after Saturday's 28-point/18-rebound performance against Portland, has now logged at least 10 double doubles in back to back seasons.
• Higgins is just the fourth Tiger ever to record 10 or more double doubles in back-to-back seasons, joining Tine Freil, Julie Szukalski and most recently, two-time First Team All-WCC member Kendall Kenyon.
• McDavid is the seventh Tiger all-time to grab 200 offensive rebounds, doing so in just 71 career games. She enters Thursday at 230 for her career, fifth all-time. McDavid also became the 24th Tiger in program history to score 1,000 career points with her first two buckets in Pacific's 64-63 win over Pepperdine on January 4. 
• Pacific ranks 27th in the country with 242 steals, with a WCC-leading 89 going to Higgins. The Granada Hills native is fourth in the nation in total takeaways. Her 89 after 24 games this season already have exceeded last season, when she logged 78 takeaways through the Tigers' first 24 contests on her way to being named the WCC Defensive Player of the Year. Higgins averages 3.71 takeaways per contest this season and set a new career high at San Francisco (Dec. 30) with nine, which ranks fourth all-time Pacific history in single-game steals. At 3.71 per game with five games remaining, Higgins is on pace to break Sheri Bates' single season record of 104 set in 1981-82. 
• Pacific has outscored its opponent off the bench in all but seven games this season and has done so in 10 of the 13 WCC contests played this season, including a 19-6 advantage over San Diego back on January 18. The Tigers entered this season with seven redshirts on the roster, including Higgins (redshirt junior).

BY THE NUMBERS

• 89 - Valerie Higgins has logged 89 steals this year, fourth in Division I and first in the WCC
• 19 - Brooklyn McDavid has scored in double figures 19 times this year
• 24 - McDavid is the 24th Tiger to reach 1,000 career points, as of 1/4/20 vs. Pepperdine
• 3 - Pacific has won three WCC Player of the Week awards this year (Higgins 2, McDavid 1)
• 230 - McDavid has grabbed 230 career offensive rebounds, fifth in program history

LAST TIME OUT

• Pacific split the return games against the Pacific Northwest last weekend against Gonzaga on Thursday and Portland on Saturday.
•  Valerie Higgins recorded her 10^th double double on the year with 28 points and a career-high 18 rebounds in another gritty matchup with the Pilots, coming out with a 77-70 win at the Alex G. Spanos Center. Higgins also logged her second game in three outings with at least five steals, pickpocketing the Pilots six times to move her total on an increasingly impressive year to 89. 
• Pacific took care of the ball against Portland, turning it over just 10 times for their third-lowest single-game turnover total this season. The Tigers also limited a normally active Portland defense to just five steals, tied for the second fewest by a Pacific opponent in 2019-20.
• Lianna Tillman reached double figures in scoring against Gonzaga for the second time this season, going for 12 points against the Bulldogs on Thursday on 4-of-10 shooting.

SCOUTING THE TOREROS

• San Diego comes into Thursday's rematch as defensively active as these two teams' last meeting, ranking 15^th in Division I with 251 total steals and 20^th with 20.83 turnovers forced per game.
• The Toreros will be Pacific's second straight opponent that averages upwards of 10 steals per game, clocking in at 10.9 (Portland averaged 11.7 entering Saturday).
• Myah Pace (72) and Jordyn Edwards (53) both rank in the top 50 nationally in total steals and top five in the conference.
• San Diego struggles offensively from the field with a 36.7 shooting clip, last in the WCC. The Toreros also rank 10^th in the conference with 817 total rebounds and a scoring offense of just 60.1 points per game.

 SCOUTING THE COUGARS

• BYU remains one of the hottest shot-blocking teams in Division I, leading the conference with 139 total and 6.3 per game, good for sixth and fourth in the nation, respectively. Much of that is courtesy of Sara Hamson, who leads both the WCC and nation with 96 blocks and 4.36 per contest.
• Continuing with the defense, BYU leads the conference and is third nationally in field goal defense, holding opposing offenses to just 32.5 percent from the field.
• Paisley Johnson leads the Cougars from the floor with 14.1 points per game, while Hamson converts a team-high 59.6 of her shots from the field and has pulled down another team high of 180 rebounds. 

 TRACK THE ACTION

• Don Gubbins will have the audio call from San Diego on Pacific All-Access. The game against the Toreros can also be viewed on the WCC Network. Saturday's matinee against BYU will be aired on BYUtv.

FOLLOW US

• For more updates and information on the 2019-20 Pacific women's basketball team, be sure to follow along on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and stay tuned to pacifictigers.com.