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SoCon Women in July 2018
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swvabucsfan Offline
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SoCon Women in July 2018
MERCER 30-3, 14-0

Mercer finally broke through against Chattanooga last year after 2 years of falling just short, playing a 7 person rotation with nobody else getting over 7.6 minutes. They lost 4 of those 7, including 3 time POY Kahlia Lawrence [although the 2016-2017 award was clearly stolen from Tianna Tarter who had better stats on a worse team] (19.3 ppg and 5.1 rebounds) and All Conference Sydni Means (8.3 ppg, 3.7 rebounds and 7.2 assists, 3rd in D1). But they return 3 top players, all Seniors, led by POY favorite 5-9 Sr. KeKe Calloway (16.9 ppg on .388 from 3 with 99 makes and 1.5 steals), 5-10 Sr. Amanda Thompson (7.2 ppg, 6.7 rebounds) and 6-3 Sr. Rachel Selph (6.2 ppg, 3.8 rebounds 1.2 blocks).

They have an odd imbalance in class: 5 Seniors, 0 Juniors, 2 little used Sophomores and 6 Freshmen. The last time that Suzy Gardner brought in so many freshmen the class was led by Kahlia Lawrence and laid the foundations for last year’s 30-3 championship.

Mercer is lucky that their main challengers, Chattanooga (Gilbert sisters and Hall of Fame Coach Foster) and ETSU (Tianna Tarter), also suffered key losses. They’ll be counting heavily on freshmen to back up Seniors Calloway, Thompson and Self.

ETSU 20-13, 11-3

Okay, Mercer and Chattanooga are depleted, so the Bucs can step right up? Not so fast.

The Bucs had a solid season in Tianna Tarter's senior year, buoyed by super freshman Erica Haynes-Overton (SoCon Freshman of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year) who set a single game record of 11 steals which was then quickly matched by Tarter, graduate transfer Shy Copney and JUCO Britney Snowden. They were 11-3 in the SoCon, beating Chattanooga twice and going 2-1 versus UNCG with each game being very close. But they were 0-3 versus a historically good Mercer, never finishing closer than 15 points. And the Bucs were painfully streaky to watch. The ball hawking tandem of Tarter and Haynes-Overton (23rd and 6th in D1 for steals) were capable of knocking anybody back on their heels. The Bucs were 16th in D1 in steals per game averaging 11. But the Bucs could also go cold as ice. They'd alternate quarters in which they looked unbeatable with quarters where they couldn't score. The SoCon tourney went like the season with the Bucs scraping by UNCG (with 2 brilliant defensive quarters holding them to 14 points; and 2 weak quarters allowing 38 points) and losing to Mercer by 15 in the final. Sadly, Tianna Tarter finished one of the all time great Buc careers without ever making the NCAA's.

Now 4 year team leader Tianna Tarter is gone, along with 3 point whiz Shy Copney and glue player Malloree Schurr. Rising sophomore Alayjah Sherer transferred to JUCO. Sophomore Haynes-Overton with a brilliant freshman season (14.5 ppg, 4.7 rebounds and 3.5 steals - 6th in D1 for steals!!) and POY talent is an obvious replacement for Tarter, but has shown some concerning tendencies. In particular her gawd awful approach to free throw shooting which developed during the season – just step up and fling it without any proper warmup routine. The result was a predictable worsening FT%, from .707 OOC to .595 FT% in conference. This raises some questions about judgement and coachability. The coaching staff can’t have been advising her to shoot that way (??). The talent is certainly there, but I remember Destiny Mitchell who never quite rose to the level of her fabulous freshman year, and developed a different but equally freakish, willful and unsuccessful, approach to free throw shooting. Coach Ezell arrived and changed that her Senior year with resulting improvement, and not just in free throw shooting. I hope that I am wrong about this. Erica is an exciting high energy player and clearly has POY talent, IF she improves the weaknesses in her game, like developing a 3 point shot (.291 with only 16 makes), improving her assists (1.9 per game) AND improving that free throw shooting.

After going through last year with a 12 person roster, only 10 of them healthy and eligible, Coach Ezell now has 15 players aboard, including 4 freshmen, 3 transfers and 1 JUCO. Lots of new faces to integrate.

Seniors Britney Snowden (7.3 ppg, 4.9 rebounds), Raven Dean (6.7 ppg, 5.0 rebounds) and Sadasia Tipps (5.2 rebounds, 3.8 ppg) should provide experienced leadership, and hopefully the wonderfully talented Haynes-Overton will also lead. Powerful 6-2 Graduate transfer Lexie Spears (13.8 ppg, 7.6 rebounds, 1.3 steals) from Morgan State (2nd team All-MEAC) should be a real difference maker with rebounding and scoring ability underneath. The Bucs were 3rd in the SoCon in rebounding margin last year and should be better this year.

But somebody needs to step up to give us another strong back court presence besides Haynes-Overton. And the Bucs 3 point shooting has been woeful for too long, with a worst in SoCon .252 (which is also 339th out of 349 teams in D1!!) and a 6th in conference 4.9 makes (253rd in D1), with 2/3 of those makes departing with Tarter and Copney. I am rooting for R-Jr Carley Litton to rediscover the 3 point shot that looked so promising coming out of Floyd, but we’ll need others to step it up, too.

Contenders at the guard position include:
Returnee 5-4 Jr Jada Craig who needs to improve on 15 min., 2.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 1.4 assists.
5-7 JUCO Kacie Fountain had 6.0 assists (9th in JUCO), 5.4 ppg and 3.8 rpg in 27.7 minutes at Southwest Mississippi CC.
5-8 UAB transfer R-So Micah Scheetz of Knoxville with 3.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg and 1.3 assists.
5-10 Richmond transfer Jr Taisha Murphy with 9.4 minutes, 1.9 ppg, 0.7 rpg 0.4 assists.
Two freshman signees bring some great potential:
5-6 Fr Kaia Upton is the former teammate of Haynes-Overton at East Nashville Magnet, and another ball hawking (4.0 steals) talent, making AA all-state as a sophomore before a junior year ACL. Senior stats were 17.5 ppg, 3.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 4.0 steals.
5-10 Fr Amaya Adams of Kansas City Mo. was 16 points per game scorer, see junior year highlights: https://www.hudl.com/video/3/6881398/58d...3900774055

The Bucs have an opportunity in the SoCon this year, but they also have some things to prove.

CHATTANOOGA 17-13, 8-6

The Mocs stayed in house to replace retiring Hall of Fame Coach Jim Foster with Katie Burrows, former Moc player and an eight year assistant to both Foster and Wes Moore. They had a brutal early schedule (typical of Foster), but beat 5 power conference teams. Unfortunately, they wore down late, though, finishing the regular season on a 2-3 skid and losing the first game of the SoCon tourney to UNCG, a team that they had beaten twice in the regular season. They were 0-4 against Mercer and ETSU. That was Foster's first SoCon fail after 4 championships in a row.

They lose by far their two best players, Aryanna and Keiana Gilbert, to graduation. They do return everybody else, but only Juniors 5-8 Lakelyn Bouldin (3rd team all conference with 12.4 ppg, 3.6 rebounds) and 6-2 Arianne Whitaker (6.1 ppg, 6.8 rebounds, 1.5 blocks) were productive. This team has 2 Seniors who have not been productive, 3 Juniors, 4 Sophomores and 4 Freshmen.

If the unproven freshmen and sophomores don’t come through to back up Whitaker and Bouldin, it will be a long season. Burrows will have a challenging first year as head coach. And big shoes to fill after Wes Moore (now head man at NC State) and Jim Foster.

UNCG 13-18, 6-8

The only loss is ferocious rebounder Ije Ajemba who averaged a smashing 13.3 rebounds a game (6th in D1) and 12.4 points in conference. That was 4.4 rebounds or over 50% better than second place in the SoCon!

During the regular season the Spartans didn’t continue the progress of former VCU assistant Trina Patterson’s first year as head coach, where they went from 0-14 to 7-7. Instead they slipped back a game to 6-8. This year may see some further improvement as a team full of freshmen and sophomores become sophomores (6) and juniors (5). 5-6 PG Brandi Fier (6.3 ppg, 3.6 assists) is the only senior. Leading scorer is smooth 2nd team all conference Junior 5-10 Nadine Soliman of Cairo, Egypt (13.5 ppg, 3.8 rebounds). Also counted on will be fellow Juniors 6-0 Alexis Willey (9.8 ppg, 3.8 rebounds) and 5-10 Te'ja Twitty (9.5 ppg, 6.4 rebounds).

In the SoCon tournament UNCG may have given us a taste of things to come when they fought through 2 overtimes to knock off Chattanooga in the first game, and then came within 2 points of ETSU in the semifinals. That looked like a team ready to compete with anybody in this year's SoCon. Based on tournament play and fewer losses in personnel, you could argue that they should rate ahead of ETSU and Chattanooga.

SAMFORD 15-16, 6-8

They lose their best scorer and rebounder Hannah Nichols (13.1 ppg and 7.0 rebounds), but return everybody else. Last year they played with 1 Senior (Nichols) and 1 Junior (Cassidy Williams). The rest were 6 sophomores and 5 freshmen.

This is a team with lots of upside as the underclassmen should be improving. Watch out especially for 6-1 Rs-Jr Olivia Crozier (24.2 minutes, 9.4 ppg and 5.1 rebounds) and 5-8 Jr Charity Brown (31.3, 7.9 ppg, 5.1 rebounds and 5.7 assists).

FURMAN 18-14, 7-7

They lose their best player Cierra Carter (15.5 ppg and 6.7 rebounds) and 3 of their top 5 (also DeAnneisha Jackson and Stepania Oramas).

Two 3rd team all conference players do return: 5-5 Jr Le’Jzae Davidson, another East Nashville Magnet alum (13.6 ppg and 2.7 rebounds), and 6-3 So Celena Taborn (all-Freshman with 12.0 ppg and 5.8 rebounds). But they are extremely young with 7 Freshmen and 6 Sophomores, 2 Juniors and 1 Senior. There’s a fair chance of some slippage here.

WOFFORD 10-20, 3-11

After a torrid 7 game start Jr. Chloe Wanink (22.1 ppg on .441 from 3 with 2.1 makes and 4.0 rebounds) missed the rest of the season to a knee injury. She should be back and healthy. Top 5 players return.

WESTERN CAROLINA 5-25, 1-13

The bad news is they lost 3 of their top 4 players. The good news is that on a team that went 5-25 and 1-13 in conference, those players should be replaceable. Start over and rebuild.
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2018 01:55 PM by swvabucsfan.)
07-18-2018 10:00 AM
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posterformerlyknownasthedoctor Offline
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Post: #2
RE: SoCon Women in July 2018
WJHL's preview:

no more Tianna
07-18-2018 12:19 PM
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