SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Santa Clara University women's basketball team heads out on the road this week, staying in Northern California to face Pacific on Thursday and Saint Mary's on Saturday as the race for seeding in next month's West Coast Conference Championship Tournament heats up.

THE MATCHUPS

Santa Clara (14-11, 5-7 WCC) vs. Pacific (10-14, 5-8 WCC)
Santa Clara (14-11, 5-7 WCC) vs. Saint Mary's (11-13, 5-8 WCC) 

GAME INFO

When: Thursday, Feb. 9 • 6 p.m.
Where: Alex G. Spanos Center (Stockton, Calif.)
Video: WCC Network
Live Stats: Sidearm
Game Notes: Santa Clara | Pacific

When: Saturday, Feb. 11 • 5 p.m.
Where: UCU Pavilion (Moraga, Calif.)
Video: WCC Network
Live Stats: Sidearm
Game Notes: Santa Clara | Saint Mary's

SERIES HISTORY

Santa Clara is 34-27 all-time against Pacific, including 16-15 in Stockton. The last meeting was an 80-66 Santa Clara win in Santa Clara on Jan. 14, 2023.
Santa Clara is 49-33 all-time against Portland, including 17-19 in Moraga. The last meeting was a 78-64 Saint Mary's win in Santa Clara on Jan. 12, 2023.

LAST TIME OUT

Playing in front of its largest home crowd in three years, Santa Clara kept things rolling into Saturday's first quarter, jumping out to a seven-point lead. But the WCC's best-shooting team stayed steady. First-place Portland went on a 14-0 run that began at the end of the first quarter and stretched into the second, giving it the lead for good en route to an 81-68 WCC win over the Broncos at Leavey Center.

Portland (18-6, 12-1 WCC) started the game shooting 40% – below its conference-leading average of 46.6% – and trailed by seven, 22-15 in the first quarter. That deficit was due in part to Santa Clara (14-11, 5-7 WCC) starting the game on fire, making six of its first eight shots (75%), with points from all five starters.

The Pilots then steadied the ship. Two-time defending WCC Player of the Week Alex Fowler made the first and last buckets of what would be a 14-0 go-ahead-for-good run. Fowler finished with a game-high 26 points thanks to 12 made field goals. She started the game by missing each of her first two layup attempts.

NOTES

• Tess Heal made it three in a row and four of the last five Monday, earning her ninth WCC Freshman of the Week award for her efforts during the week of Jan. 30 to Feb. 5 against the conference's top two teams.
  
  Heal has won every WCC Freshman of the Week award since Jan. 23, matching her season-long streak of three in a row. She's won nine of the 13 awards handed out this weekend. Santa Clara has collected 10 of the 13 awards, with Marya Hudgins winning the honor on Jan. 16.
  
  Heal averaged 19.0 points, 5.0 assists and 2.0 rebounds per game while shooting over 50% from the floor in two games last week. She was the Broncos' leading scorer against first-place and No. 17-ranked Gonzaga on Thursday in the Broncos' 77-72 upset win. She scored 16 points, dished three assists, grabbed two rebounds and swiped a steal against the Bulldogs. She also hit two 3-pointers and shot 80.0% from the free-throw line.
  
  Saturday, against another first-place team in Portland, she logged her seventh 20-point game of the year with a team-high 22 points. She shot 57.9% from the floor against the Pilots and tied a season-high with seven assists. Heal carried a 2.0 assists-to-turnovers ratio during the week.

• Thursday's 77-72 win over No. 17/18 Gonzaga was the Broncos' first win over the Bulldogs since beating them, 59-58, in the 2016 WCC Tournament in Las Vegas on March 3, 2016. It snapped what had been a 13-game winning streak in the series for Gonzaga. It was also the first time Santa Clara defeated a nationally ranked opponent (AP Poll) since beating No. 15 Stanford on Nov. 23, 2015.
  
  
• Santa Clara had never beat BYU in Provo entering last Saturday's matchup, going 0-12 there since 2006-07. It was the Broncos' third win over the Cougars in a series that dates to 1998-99. Saturday's 10-point triumph was Santa Clara's second-largest win over BYU, having beaten them by 12 in their first meeting, 76-64 on Dec. 5, 1998, in Santa Clara.
  
  
• So far this season, as long as Santa Clara keeps its opponent under 70 points, it wins. The Broncos are 12-0 in 2022-23 when allowing 69 or less points. And they've outscored their opponents by an average of 22.3 points in those 12 wins.
  
  
• Santa Clara head coach Bill Carr is five wins away from his 300th career victory and seven wins from his 100th as the head coach of the Santa Clara women's program. Carr spent 11 years from 1999-2016 as the head coach of three different NAIA and NCAA Division II men's basketball programs, amassing 202 wins along the way. He's won 95 games at Santa Clara, surpassing his highest total at any of his men's coaching stops (84 at Spring Hill College, 1999-2002).
  
  Carr, the eighth head coach in program history, is the fourth-winningest head coach of all-time for Broncos women's basketball. He trails No. 3 Ken Thompson, who coached SCU from 1978-88 and collected 112 victories.

• Another strong string of performances before Christmas brought more accolades for Santa Clara freshman guard Tess Heal, as she was named both the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Tamika Catchings National Freshman of the Week, and earned her fifth WCC Freshman of the Week award for the week of Dec. 12-19.
  
  Heal averaged 17.3 points, 4.7 assists, and 3.7 rebounds in three games from Dec. 12-19 (the USBWA award was based on Heal's two games from Dec. 12-18) while shooting 55.6% to help lead Santa Clara to a 2-1 week and a 1-1 start in WCC play. Heal was the Broncos' leading scorer in all three games during the week and was the game-high scorer twice.

• Santa Clara entered this season having gone 1-12 in its last 13 non-conference games played outside of California (not including the WCC Tournament), dating to Dec. 18, 2014. But they went 3-0 in 2022-23, going unbeaten at the Las Vegas Holiday Classic with wins over South Dakota (75-50) and Washington (71-58), then beating Nevada on Dec. 11, 66-56.
  
  
• Heal has played this season as one of the best freshmen not only in the WCC, not only on the West Coast – but as one of the best in the nation. Her 16.2 points per game is ranked sixth among all freshmen in the country through Sunday. No freshman in any of the West Region's Division I conferences (WCC, Pac-12, Mountain West, Big West, Big Sky, WAC) is scoring higher than her. Heal's 4.2 assists per game are also ranked sixth in the country among freshmen.
  
  
• The Broncos were a perfect 12-for-12 from the free-throw line on Jan. 12 against Saint Mary's. It's only the 13th time in program history they've been a perfect 100% from the free-throw line (minimum five attempts). It's only the fifth time in program history they've made at least 10 free throws without missing. At 12 for 12, it's the fourth-most free throws they've ever made on a perfect night, and the most since they went a school-record perfect 20-for-20 against LMU on Feb. 16, 2021.
  
  
• The Broncos made waves on Nov. 30 even in defeat with a spectacular effort against the No. 2 team in the country, as they drove up El Camino Real to revive a series versus 2021 national champion Stanford that hadn't been played for seven years. The Cardinal won, 82-69, but Santa Clara scored the second-most points allowed by the Cardinal this season, hit the most 3-pointers Stanford has allowed (13) and held the No. 2 team in the country to its worst 3-point shooting percentage (27.3%) of the year. The 13-point margin of victory was Stanford's smallest in nine wins, more than 10 points smaller than the next smallest victory margin (24).
  
  
• Journeyperson Ayzhiana Basallo enters Thursday's game only three points away from 1,000 for her career. She has six double-digit scoring games already and is the team's second-leading scorer in her first year with the Broncos. The San Francisco native has played at four different colleges during her six-year career, including Cal Poly (2017-18), San Jose State (2019-21), Arizona State (2021-22) and Santa Clara (Present).
  
  Her biggest season came in 2019-20 as a sophomore at SJSU. She was named the Mountain West Newcomer of the Year and made the Mountain West all-conference team after scoring an impressive 536 points in 29 games. Basallo is a 40.8% career shooter from 3-point range and a 90.2% career free-throw shooter

• Tess Heal played with the Australia U18 Women's National Team in India during early September at the FIBA U18 Women's Asian Championship. She helped the Gems not only qualify for the 2023 FIBA U19 Women's World Cup, but was also part of the team's first-ever championship at the event, as the Gems went undefeated to hoist the trophy 
  
  
• Santa Clara defeated Washington, 71-58, on Nov. 26 to conclude the Las Vegas Holiday Classic with a perfect 2-0 record. It was the Broncos' first win over the Huskies in 21 years almost to the day and by almost the exact same score. The Broncos last beat UW on Nov. 24, 2001, in Seattle, 71-56. It was Santa Clara's first win over a Pac-12 Conference member since Nov. 23, 2015, when it beat Stanford on the road, 61-58.
  
  
• The Broncos also beat 2022 Sweet 16 team South Dakota on the trip. Their unblemished trip to Las Vegas marked the first time they went unbeaten in a non-conference tournament in seven years. They last went 2-0 at Cal Poly's 2015 ShareSLO Holiday Tournament in San Luis Obispo on Nov. 27-28, 2015.
  
  
• Santa Clara posted its second consecutive winning season in 2021-22 – the first time the Broncos had logged consecutive winning campaigns in 16 years. The Broncos have won at least 12 games in five of head coach Bill Carr's six years at the helm. They'll be looking to log their third straight winning season in 2022-23 for the first time in 20 years – since the program wrapped up a run of 13 straight winning years in 2002-03.
  
  The Broncos' regular season success has also shown through in the postseason the last two years. Santa Clara reached the WCC Tournament quarterfinals in 2022 with back-to-back wins in the first and second rounds. That came a year after they reached the semifinals in 2021.

• Santa Clara's 2022-23 roster features eight players who haven't played for the Broncos in at least a year – that includes six newcomers who have never donned an SCU jersey, and returners Ashlee Maldonado and Lexie Pritchard, who are both returning from season-long injuries.
  
  
• Santa Clara's six newcomers include three freshmen and three transfers. The trio of transfers feature redshirt senior guard Azhiana Basallo, a San Francisco native who comes to the South Bay from Arizona State via San Jose State and Cal Poly, sophomore forward Olivia Pollerd from Washington of the Pac-12 Conference, and junior guard Jayde Cadee out of UC Irvine. The rookies include 6-foot, 3-inch forward Georgia Grigiripoulou from Athens, Greece, 5-10 guard Tess Heal out of Melbourne, Australia, and 6-0 guard Marya Hudgins from Aurora, Colo.

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