Game Notes / Media Center / / @PurdueWBB / Live Video / Live Audio
GAMEDAY INFORMATION
Purdue (0-0) vs. Ursuline College (0-0)
Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016 / 2 p.m. ET / BTN+
Mackey Arena (14,123) / West Lafayette, Ind.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Seniors Ashley Morrissette and Bridget Perry came to Purdue in 2013, as a small recruiting class of two, joining an experienced Boilermaker squad that went on to advance to its fourth straight NCAA Tournament. Neither played a lot of minutes that season, but three years later they enter their fourth and final year with the Boilermakers with a great opportunity to join a very exclusive club.
Entering the 42nd season of Purdue women's basketball, just 30 players in school history have scored 1,000 career points. Morrissette enters the season 187 points shy of the mark, while Perry is just behind her, 340 points away. Even rarer, only nine sets of classmates at Purdue have hit the 1,000-point plateau together, starting with the trio of Christa LaCroix, Lisa Jahner and current Boilermaker head coach Sharon Versyp in 1988, and most recently achieved by KK Houser and Courtney Moses in 2014.
"It's an outstanding achievement to go after and a pretty prestigious list to be on here at Purdue," said Perry. "It makes it even more special to chase 1,000 points together with my senior partner. It makes it a team milestone, not just an individual one."
"Coming in as a freshman, it wasn't one of my goals or priorities to score 1,000 points," said Morrissette. "It would be great to go into the Purdue record books with Bridget, working toward a goal together, completing it together."
Having two seniors chasing the 1,000-point club offers an added bonus for the Boilermakers this season, as both of them hitting the mark means likely successes for the Old Gold & Black.
"To have two players in the same class joining the 1,000-point club bodes well for us and our continued success," said Versyp. "It helps us in so many ways because it teaches the younger players the way to do things, how to put in the work and what's needed to achieve those goals."
As Versyp and any other member of the Boilermaker roster would tell you, Morrissette and Perry are very different people. However, they do share a common trait which has made them grow closer over their careers.
"We're both incredibly competitive people," said Perry. "We want to win at everything, we hate losing and we'll do whatever it takes to get that win."
"Goals can definitely bring people together," said Morrissette. "Once Bridget and I realized we had the same goals, that's when we came together and bonded more."
While Sunday's results will not count towards either players' career statistics, it sets the stage for their final season at Purdue. The Boilermakers and Arrows are set to tip at 2 p.m. ET at Mackey Arena.
| Year | 1,000-Point Scorers |
| 1988 | Christa LaCriox, Lisa Jahner, Sharon Versyp |
| 1991 | Joy Holmes, Rhonda Mateen |
| 1996 | Tonya Kirk, Stacey Lovelace |
| 1999 | Ukari Figgs, Stephanie White |
| 2001 | Camille Cooper, Katie Douglas |
| 2004 | Erika Valek, Shereka Wright |
| 2007 | Katie Gearlds, Erin Lawless |
| 2009 | Lakisha Freeman, Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton |
| 2014 | KK Houser, Courtney Moses |
TEAM NOTES
- Entering 42nd season of competition, entering the year with exactly 800 wins in program history
- Return five of the team's top-six scorers and 69.1 percent of its total scoring from 2015-16
- Two starters back which averaged double-figure scoring in the previous season (Morrissette, Perry) for the first time since 2013-14 (Moses, Houser)
- Return three starters with a combined 92 starts from last season; in years that Versyp returns at least three starters and over 60 starts, Purdue has averaged 24.1 wins per year and has made the NCAA Tournament every time
- Fifteen of the team's 20 wins in 2015-16 came by double-digits
- Set school records for fewest turnovers per game (14.5) and fouls per game (16.0) in 2015-16
- Turned in the seventh-most single-season blocks in program history, turning away 158 shots
OPPONENT NOTES
- Ursuline had its best season in program history in 2015-16, posting a 25-4 record and reaching the NCAA Division II Tournament
- The Arrows return all five starters and six players who averaged more than 20 minutes per game in 2015-16
- Laney Lewis was the 2015-16 Great Midwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year, averaging 12.8 points and 11.2 rebounds per game
- Camryn Hill is Ursuline's returning leading scorer, posting 14.2 points per game
- Ursuline suffered a narrow loss to Cleveland State in its first exhibition game, 77-72
HEAD COACH Sharon Versyp
- Heads into her 11th year as the Boilermakers' head coach, giving her the longest tenure of any coach in program history
- Winningest Purdue women's basketball head coach, earning 214 to date and 331 for her career, and second in program history in Big Ten Conference wins with 101
- Purdue's eight NCAA Tournament appearances under Versyp are the most under any head coach in program history
- Starred for the Boilermakers from 1985-88, scoring the 13th-most points in program history and was the fourth-fastest player at Purdue to reach 1,000-career points (77 games)
- One-of-2 Big Ten head coaches to lead her alma mater (Amy Williams, Nebraska)
#BOILERNOTES
- Purdue is 42-3 all-time in exhibition games, winning 37 straight entering Sunday
- The Boilermakers' last exhibition loss came against the U.S. National Team in 1999
- Purdue's single-game scoring record in an exhibition game is 120 points against Moldavia in 1993
- Perry has led the team in scoring in each of Purdue's last two exhibitions, scoring 13 against Findlay in 2014 and posted 17 points and 13 rebounds against Marian in 2015
- The Boilermakers have surrendered an average of 32.0 points per game to their last four exhibition opponents, including a program-record low 25 to Findlay in 2014