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Virginia plays at Hofstra in WNIT Round of 16 on Tuesday

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virginia basketballThe Virginia women’s basketball team (18-15, 6-10 ACC) takes on Hofstra (24-8, 13-5 CAA) in the Round of 16 of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament on Tuesday, March 22 at 7 p.m. in Hempstead, N.Y.

All of the 2015-16 Virginia women’s basketball games – home and away – are available locally on NewsRadio 1070 AM and 98.9 FM WINA and streaming online at wina.com and VirginiaSports.com with John Freeman calling the action. Live streaming video will be available on the GoHofstra.com website.

The potential next-round opponents will be determined in games being contested on Monday night between Georgia Tech, Tulane, Wake Forest and Florida Gulf Coast. The location and date for the quarterfinal game will be announced at a later date.

Both teams will be looking to match their best-ever showings in the WNIT. Virginia has made four trips to the quarterfinals (2006, 2007, 2011, 2012). Hofstra advanced to the quarterfinals in 2007. Virginia head coach Joanne Boyle’s Cal team won the WNIT Championship in 2010.

Virginia is coming off a 71-55 victory on Sunday afternoon at Rutgers, avenging a 60-48 loss to the Scarlet Knights earlier this season in the Paradise Jam Tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Cavaliers shot 45.5 percent (25-of-55), their best shooting percentage since making 54.1 percent of their shots in the win at Georgia Tech on Jan. 17.  The Cavaliers were also +17 in rebounding against the Scarlet Knights, their most-dominant rebounding performance since grabbing 18 more rebounds than Coppin State during the Cavalier Classic Tournament in December.

Senior Faith Randolph (Derwood, Md.) scored 23 points at Rutgers. After scoring 21 points at VCU, Randolph is averaging 22.0 points per game in the WNIT. Randolph went 7-of-12 from the field and 9-of-9 from the line. Randolph also dished three assists and had a team-high three steals.

Sophomore Aliyah Huland El (Randolph, N.J.) scored 17 points at Rutgers. Huland El has scored in double-figures in three of the last four games, including scoring 16 points against Duke in the ACC Tournament game.

Redshirt sophomore J’Kyra Brown (Rocky Mount, N.C.) led the team in rebounding with a season-high 10 boards. Brown previously shared the team-high rebounding lead with seven boards in the win over North Carolina (Feb. 25).

Hofstra lost the only previous meeting against the Cavaliers, 82-66 in a season-opening game in 2010 in Hempstead.

Hofstra is 24-8 and has already secured the second-most wins in the team’s Division I era. The record was 26 wins set by the 2006-07 squad. That team was also the last time Hofstra advanced past the second round of the WNIT.

The Pride bested Harvard at home in the first round on Thursday before holding Villanova to 8-for-28 three-point shooting in the second-round win. Senior Jakelle King-Gilchrist scored a career-high 22 points on 8-for-13 shooting and also had a personal-best seven rebounds in the victory. Fellow senior Darius Faulk, who fell one rebound shy of Hofstra’s first-ever triple-double in the WNIT first round win over Harvard, went for 17 points, eight assists and seven rebounds against the Wildcats.

Hofstra is 13-1 in home games. The Pride can match the 1978-79 team for the most single-season home wins in program history with one more victory.

The window for the dates for quarterfinal games is Saturday, March 26 through Monday, March 28.

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