The Ladies have a warm-up game today vs High Point in Cassell. at 5 PM. The game is on the ACC network. I'll start by stealing from 07Hokie's Statistical Notes:
Virginia Tech will open the 2023-24 Brooksketball schedule against High Point. The 17-15 Panthers return seven players who netted at least 100 minutes over their 32 game season. Oddly enough 8 of those 10 were all guards. Both post players return, 6-3 SR C Amaria McNear, who finished with only 111 minutes last year and 1.2 ppg in the 13 games in which she played. Joining her in the post is 6-0 SO F Nevaeh Zavala who put up 2.7 ppg in her 178 minutes. Less than 300 minutes over 32 games tells me that this team might just only utilize a five guard rotation. Leading those potential five guards is Nakiyah Terrell, a 5-6 JR who averaged 10.4 last season. Following her are 6-0 SO Anna Hager (2.9 ppg), 6-1 SR Claire Wyatt (8.5 ppg), 5-2 SR Callie Scheier (7.8 ppg) and 6-1 JR Shakira Baskerville (5.1 ppg). High Point isn't a threat in the post, having only pulled down 31.0 rpg, so expect Kitley, Micheaux, and Strack to body people down low. They do have a high TO rate, so hopefully the Hokies can exploit that.
As 07 notes, they return 7 and 6 players have moved on. They have balanced the roster by adding 2 Freshmen in 6' Forward Peyton Gerdes and 5'7 Guard Emma Larios; and bringing back 5'11 Redshirt Senior Guard Cydney Johnson, who was out with an injury last year. And they brought in 5 players from the portal.
Some of the portal players look like contributors to me:
Faith Price is a 5'7 Guard who transferred from UNC Greensboro where she averaged about 30 minutes per game in 30 games. And she led the team in 3 point attempts.
Mack Maier is a 5'9 Guard who transferred from Wake Forest, where she did not play much. She's listed as a shooting guard.
Lauren Bevis is a 5'5 Guard who transferred from Gardner Webb, where she was All-Big South Conference selection at guard ... 2023 Big South All-Tournament Team ... The conference's top shooter from the perimeter and one of the top shooters in Gardner-Webb basketball history ... 259 three-pointers made (259-of-669) at a 38.7 percent clip ... Has scored 1,379 career points in 113 games played (71 starts) ... Career 85.6 percent free throw shooter (268-of-314).
Aaliyah Collins is 5'6 Junior Guard, who does not seem to have played last year(redshirt due to transfer?). Seems to be a defensive specialist.
Bukky Akinsola is 5'6 Junior Guard who transferred from a Community College. Supposed to be quick and a good defender.
The Full roster:
The Hokies should not be challenged tonight unless they take this game too lightly while looking ahead. Hopefully Coach Brooks can get some of the younger players a few minutes in this game. I am really looking forward to seeing what Carleigh Wenzel brings.
Comments
Let's Go!
HOKIES
HOKIES!!
Has there been a Lady Hokies season preview? Looking to find out which new faces I should be on the lookout for in general, but also who needs to step up to replace Traylor, Soule, and Gregg.
https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2023/november/5/2023-24-hokie-hoops-s...
Bottom half here is a great start
Awesome thanks.
(Also, no idea how I missed this)
I'm not an article writer, just a TKPC member, and stat nerd with a degree that requires the enjoyment of writing.
hoping our ladies make this the low point of the other teams season
Brooks made some good comments at a lunch a few weeks ago. We return three players (Kitley, King, and Georgia) who have played minutes in a VT jersey. The rest are transfers, redshirt freshman, or true freshman. It is going to take some time to build on court, real game chemistry. He also said that the team that finished last year was not the same team that started last year so we shouldn't expect this team to be a continuation of that team. We are much deeper than last year but it will take some time for the starters to gel. He said Ekh is the best pure shooter he has coached. It will be fun to see her in this offense. The freshman Strak averaged 20ppg while they were in Greece this summer (Liz didn't play much).
The crazy part is that by her Junior year Strack may be our "small" forward
Silva and Hazelton are both coming in at at least 6-5.
Some sites show Silva already at 6'7.
Those are some strong accolades from Coach Brooks.
True, start of last season we were playing with Owusu who got injured when she was just starting to mesh. Then when she finally healed, the backups had taken her minutes and made them theirs. Afterwards, she was a spoiled brat about it.
The combined usage of High Point's bigs last year was slightly greater than our usage of Taylor Geiman
Any tv or steaming access?
Straight up ACCN for this one I believe. The men's game is ACCNX/ESPN+
It appears to be available on the ESPN app, which would also tend to suggest WatchESPN
I don't think Cinemax After Dark was covering the game....
Our ladies are well qualified to win basketball games.
In the first 5:15:
Kitley with 8 points 2 rebounds
Amoore with 4 points, 3 assists, 2 rebounds
Ekh and King with a 3 pointer each
Micheaux with 2 points.
Amoore has the only misses (2 x 3 point attempts). We're shooting 8 of 10 and 2 of 4 from range
Wenzel draws a moving screen in her first minute
Kitley with 10
Kitley being quadruple-teamed and still scoring gives me great joy.
Kitley may struggle to get the double double as the Hokies are hitting everything
Starters in the first quarter were 14/16
We're on pace for 150 points.
Not a fan of every shot coming from a starter, but when they all are shooting 50% or better, I can't complain much
Just realized I gotta be in Richmond for a team/work dinner at 7:30pm on Thursday during the game against Iowa. Shit.
Good half overall! They weren't going to keep that first quarter scoring pace up but glad to still see them win the second quarter too!
6 players shooting 50% or greater. The only one not shooting at least 60% is Ekh who is only shooting 3s.
4 Hokies with 3 pointers.
7 Hokies have scored
Micheaux leads with 7 rebounds, followed by Kitley's 5
Amoore with 7 assists.
Hokies up 31 going into the final quarter.
Kitley 25 points, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks
Amoore 14 points, 9 assists
Ekh 15 points, 5 rebounds
King 11 ponts, 2 blocks
Micheaux 4 points 7 rebounds
Wenzel 3 points, 2 blocks
Summiel 1 point 4 rebounds
What a wasted domain name BuyHammered.com is.
That absolutely should take you to a drunk-friendly version of Amazon.
Double Double #1 for Kitley
All 10 Hokies scored
Great first game, Ladies! Time to see how all the transfers and underclassmen mesh in this system in the first big test on Thursday night against Iowa and Caitlin Clark. They did pretty well tonight coming together.
Kitley led all scorers with 27, followed by Ekh (15), Amoore and King (14), and Wenzel (7)
Kitley led all rebounders with 11, followed by Micheaux and Summiel (8), and Ekh (5)
Wenzel led all blockers with 4, followed by Kitley and King (2)
Amoore had 9 assists, followed by King (3), Kitley and Summiel (2).
Great start to the year. Let's carry it over to Iowa!
Was impressed with Wentzel's ability to recover on defense.
I think the redshirt year helped her on defense and those blocks!
Only because I hadn't seen it posted yet
It's beautiful
Iowa Hawkeyes Football:
81 points in 6 Big Ten Games
Iowa Hawkeyes Women's Basketball:
85 points in 3 quarters
Outside of Clark, Iowa is 1-14 from beyond the arc.
Game over for Iowa. 102 points scored. Very poor outside shooting (21.4%) but they were very good down low (75.6%), which is to be expected when the tallest player they were up against was 6-2. I doubt they'll be that effective against multiple players 6-3 or taller.
Also, that outside shooting includes Clark. Outside of her, the Hawkeyes shot 2 for 19, or 10.5%.
LSU got smoked tonight
You hate to see it.
Is Deion taking credit for it?
Looks like the outfit didn't help
Honestly can't believe the most annoying player ever Hailey Van Lith transfered to the most annoying unbearable team ever LSU... wait, actually it is so believable. God that team is the worst now.
The worst thing about it, is that she has 2 more years. She is a graduated student now - yeah yeah technicality, but she can use her covid year too. She can be max annoying.
Wouldn't be surprised if LSU team ends up on a reality show on Bravo. Definitely has the makings and characters for one.
Their coach qualifies by herself.
Maybe they should have tried throwing more elbows.