The UIC women's basketball team (2-6) begins an East Coast swing with its first-ever game against Virginia (6-2) Friday evening at 6:00 at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va.

The game will mark Terri Bender's 100^th game at UIC.  The senior guard from Milwaukee broke a fifth place tie on the school's all time assist list against Northwestern Tuesday.  If she maintains her current season average of 3.6 assists per game, she'll leave as the Flames' all time leader in the category.  Bender is also fifth in program history in steals.

Bender and the Flames will try to bounce back from a loss at Northwestern that left the team still searching for their first win in December.  UIC had the lead in the first quarter before the Wildcats, behind 8 steals from reigning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Ashley Deary, ratcheted up their defense and never looked back.

Freshman Tyra Carlsten-Handberg led the Flames in scoring for the second time this year and boosted her season average to 7.1, to go along with 4.1 rebounds.  Taylor Toney made her fourth consecutive start and paced UIC with six rebounds.  She leads the squad in scoring at 10.8 points per game.

Sophomore Brittany Byrd made her season debut against the Wildcats.  She attempted a team high 12 field goals and finished with eight points, including two highlight worthy layups while drawing fouls.

Virginia is also a victim of Northwestern's this season.  The Cavaliers left Evanston with a 69-60 loss on Dec. 1.  They rebounded with a 20 point win at Bowling Green in their most recent contest and will step on the court Friday for the first time in 12 days after a lengthy break for final exams.

Junior Lauren Moses leads the Cavaliers in scoring and rebounding.  She is sixth in the ACC in shooting at a remarkable 54.3% clip.  The team hangs its hat on defense, though.  They rank 27^th in the country, allowing just 54.3 points per game, thanks in part to Felicia Aiyetoan who is second in the ACC and in the top 20 nationally in blocks (2.75 per game).

UIC has never faced a team that was in the ACC at the time of the game.  In fact, their only prior meetings with any current ACC schools were one game against Miami before they joined the conference, and 11 games against Notre Dame that mostly occurred when they were in UIC's conference.

Likewise, UIC has very little experience in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Their lone game in the Old Dominion before Friday was a 2001 matchup against Norfolk State.

Friday's contest will be available on the ACC Network Extra with live stats courtesy of VirginiaSports.com.