Two games into the season, the UIC women's basketball team has had a pair of Jekyll and Hyde performances.

Head coach Regina Miller wants the better version of her squad to show up Thursday night when the Flames host Robert Morris at 7:00 pm in the UIC Pavilion.

As well as UIC played in the season opening win over Lake Forest, they performed worse virtually across the board in the loss to Illinois State Monday.  Consider the following indicators of success:
 

	vs. Lake Forest	vs. Illinois State
Field Goal %	.467	.322
3-point Shooting	2-9	2-14
Turnovers	13	21
Free Throws	57%	48%

Despite those numbers, UIC had chances late in the game to tie or take the lead against Illinois State, but went just 1 for 6 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter and missed their last six field goals.

"We had way too many empty possessions," Miller said.  "Illinois State executed better than we did, but we learned a lot of lessons.  Sometimes you learn more from a loss than from a win, and this loss will prepare us for Robert Morris and IUPUI."

Indeed, there were bright spots against the Redbirds.  Senior Melita Emanuel-Carr had 13 points and tied a career high with eight rebounds.  Junior Teodora Zagorac had her second straight 10 rebound performance.  And sophomore Catera Etheridge has had two all-around solid games, putting up 10 points and grabbing six boards Monday night – both career highs. 
 

Lighting Up the NCAA Leaderboard

The Flames are making some noise in the early national rankings.  They outrebounded Illinois State 54-33, upping their rebounding margin to +16 per game – good for 30th in the nation.  UIC is also in the top 30 in the country in blocks (7.0, 23rd), rebounds (51.5, 9th), and steals (14.0, 25th). *rankings as of 11/16/16

The Flames will carry those positives into Thursday's contest as they attempt to revert to their overall Opening Night form when they face the Eagles for the first time in team history.  Robert Morris comes in at 0-3, having dropped two games in the Purdue Northwest Tournament and losing their home opener Saturday to Ave Maria.  They are led by Amber Jennings, who is scoring 17.7 points per game. 

The Eagles have struggled to keep their games competitive.  They've been outscored by an average of 36.7 points per game, and are -17.7 in rebounding margin and have turned the ball over 10.0 times more than their opponents.

If the Flames have early success against Robert Morris, it will give Miller a chance to get more of her players extended playing time.  "We're a young team in experience, especially once you get past the guard positions," she noted.  "We're still finding our identity.  But if we can finish layups and make our free throws, we can win games while we're figuring things out."