Season Preview: Women’s Top Five

Yesterday we looked at the men’s basketball team’s first five games. Now let’s move on to the women’s team.

Head coach Robin Pingeton The 14th season in Colombia did not go well Missouri. After starting 5-1, the Tigers went 6-18 the rest of the way and just 2-14 in conference play. Missouri’s incredibly young roster has gained plenty of experience, but not many wins as a group.

Probably the best win of the season took place at IllinoisI guess. Both conference wins were against Georgia And Vanderbilt in a row, the Tigers then lost their last 12 games.

Hayley Frank finished his college career with a 442-point season, averaging 16.4 per game and 6.3 rebounds per game, but missed a few matchups.

Second year student Ashton Judd took a step forward from his freshman year, scoring 31 points against State of Indianareaching 20 four times, recording five double-doubles and averaging 13.4 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.

Freshman Grace Slaughter burst onto the scene, averaging 11.5 points per game after scoring in double figures in seven of his first nine games. She added double-digit performances in 14 conference games.

Freshman Schreacke Abbey proved to be a useful piece with 7.6 points and 2.6 rebounds per game, while the freshman Hannah Linthacum took the place of the injured junior Angelique Ngalakulondi and had averages of 3.2 points and 2.4 rebounds per game.

Judd, Slaughter, Schreacke, Linthacum and Ngalakulondi all return this year with the juniors Averi Kroenke back after missing all of last season due to injury.

Now let’s look to the future.

I skip the exhibition game against State of Truman on October 29, there will have to be a Division I game to get a preview.

The Tigers open the season with one of their best non-power conference opponents, the Catamounts.

Vermont finished last season 25-12 with a 12-4 record in the American Eastern Conference.

After losing at the American Eastern Championship to the top seed Mainethe Catamounts made it to the WNIT and won three games before losing to St. Louis in the Fab Four.

Graduate forward Anna Olson returns after being second on the team in scoring with 11.6 points per game and a team-high 6.1 rebounds per game.

Junior guard Keira Hanson returns after playing in 36 of the Catamounts’ 37 games, but starting only eight, while starting at senior guard Bella Vito also returns.

Vermont is coming back a lot from a team that was much better than the Tigers last year. It might be tough to open the season, but it will be interesting to see where all the young Tigers are developmentally as they enter their second and third seasons.

As with the men’s schedule, the women return home for the opener at Mizzou Arena with an easier matchup in the second game.

South finished 15-15 last year with a 13-5 record in Southwestern Athletic Conference play.

The Jaguars played a heavy non-conference schedule last year and went 1-8 against power conference teams. Victory came against Oklahoma.

They have a similar challenge early in the season, opening at Oklahoma before playing at Missouri, Iowa State, Nebraska, Colorado And State of Colorado for a six-game road trip to start the year. Southern returns home to welcome NC Statethen play Texashas By Paul and to Illinois for the full non-conference slate.

It’s an incredible way to prepare a non-conference team for its conference tournament and the playoffs, but this plan didn’t work last year when the Jaguars lost to Alcorn State in the first round of the SWAC tournament.

Last year’s top two scorers were graduates and didn’t return, but the third top scorer Aleighyah Fontenot and his 8.5 points and 2.8 rebounds are back. Start forward Sky Castro also returns for the Jaguars.

This should be a good opportunity for the Tiger lineup to work on getting back into rhythm and moving forward.

The Spartans were a pretty astonishing 27-6 last year and 13-1 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, but against Power Conference opponents the results were a bit worse.

Norfolk State was 0-4 against power conference teams and averaged a 23.25-point margin of defeat in those matchups, including a loss to Stanford 79-50 in the first round of the NCAA tournament after winning the MEAC tournament.

This year’s non-conference schedule was beefed up a bit for the Jaguars, with matchups against Missouri, Alabama, Washington State, Wyoming, Green Bay, St. Louis, North Carolina And Auburn.

The Spartans had four players who started the majority of the games they played last year and returned all four.

Qualified guard Diamond Johnson led the team with 20.2 points per game last season and 5.4 rebounds per game, but she missed 10 games due to injury. She started all 23 games she played in.

Senior forward Kierra Wheeler added 17.6 points and 9.7 rebounds per game last year, starting all 32 games she played.

Both men were key parts of an offense that averaged 66.97 points per game.

Qualified guard Niya Fields is also back after starting all 33 games and scoring 6.4 points per game, while junior guard Da’naija Williams and her 6.7 points per game after starting 24 of the 30 games she played.

The Spartans are certainly a more experienced group than the Tigers, but I would expect these power conference matchups to look similar for Norfolk State, so the Tigers should handle business.

The Tigers finish a three-game homestand with a Green Wave team that went 12-20 last year and 3-15 in American Athletic Conference play.

The Green Wave only faced two Power Conference opponents last year, facing Virginia And Virginia Tech in the Cayman Islands Classic and dropping out of both at the end of November.

This year, Tulane will face a few SEC opponents. After playing Missouri, the Green Wave will also face LSU And Florida for the team’s three scheduled opponents in the power conference.

Tulane had six players who started at least 20 games last year and two are returning.

Redshirt senior guard Kyren Whittington returns after leading the team with 17.4 points per game and 3.4 rebounds. Junior forward Amira Mabry is also back after scoring 11.4 points per game and pulling down 6.0 rebounds per game for second place on the team.

This should be easy for the Tigers, but who knows with this group.

So where are we with this team? Take the path to face Western Illinois? Of course, why not.

At least Leathernecks is a fun name.

Western Illinois was 18-12 last season with a 9-9 record in Ohio Valley Conference play.

The only game the Leathernecks played against a power conference team last year was a 74-52 loss to Wisconsin early November.

Missouri is one of the Leathernecks’ two power conference opponents this year with Cincinnati.

Western Illinois returns three starters from last season, including a second-year guard Reagan McCowan from Lebanon, Missouri, who was the team’s leading scorer with 19.4 points per game and a team-high 8.1 rebounds per game.

Junior guard Addie Brownfieldof Boonville, Missouri, also returns after averaging 10.3 points, 5.4 rebounds and a team-high 3.5 assists per game, while junior guard Allie Pres returns after averaging 6.2 points, 3.9 rebounds.

There’s no reason for Missouri to lose to a team like this, but there’s also no real reason for the Tigers to play this game on the road.

I’m not high on this Missouri team, expecting a rough year in the final season of Pingeton’s contract. There is a lot of talent among the young players and hopefully an extra year of experience will allow for great development. But I can’t imagine this team is ready to be anything more than a high-end bottom-half SEC team.

Still, even that should get you through these first five games 4-1.

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