Women's Basketball to Return for First Home Game
Women’s basketball returns to the Curb Event Center for its home opener Friday night against the University of South Florida.
The Bruins ended last season on a sour note, getting upset as the No. 2 seed by the 10th-seeded Evansville Aces in the second round of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, 76-63.
That Belmont team bounced back from a 4-8 non-conference record by going 16-4 in MVC play.
This year, the Bruins face a similarly difficult non-conference slate, which features games against Columbia, LSU, Iowa State and Vanderbilt. Belmont will also host the University of Tennessee on Nov. 17.
The Bruins are 0-1 to start the season, following a 63-52 road loss to Princeton on Monday night.
Graduate transfer Kenley McCarn, one of five newcomers, led the team with 15 points in the loss.
Along with senior Lauren Rust and graduate student Katie Criswell, McCarn is one of three players added through the transfer portal. Belmont’s other two newcomers are freshmen Samiya Jones and Chelby Jordan.
Seven players transferred from Belmont after last season: Jailyn Banks, Kensley Feltner, Hilary Fuller, Claire Hyde, Avery Strickland Hurst, Sanaa Tripp and Dacarra Ward. Emily La Chapell and Tuti Jones graduated.
Belmont’s holdovers include: fifth-year KK Brodie, junior Quinn Eubank, and sophomores Rylie Beers, Kate McGinnis, Leah West, and Tatum Woodson.
That group combined for 450 points in 1,842 minutes last season, accounting for 19.8% of the team’s points and 28.4% of the team’s minutes.
Missing over 80% of last year’s scoring and almost 70% of the minutes played, this new-look roster has plenty of shoes to fill, but potentially not enough feet to fill them.
Belmont has only 11 players on its roster, which is four fewer than last year, ahead of a grueling 32-game regular season.
Despite the small, unproven roster, the Bruins were picked to finish third in the MVC preseason poll and received two of the 44 first-place votes, the second-highest total.
Belmont fans’ first chance to get a look at the new-look Bruins comes against a South Florida team that finished last season 20-12.
South Florida lost its head coach of 25 years, Jose Fernandez, to the WNBA’s Dallas Wings before last season started. He was replaced by Michele Woods-Baxter, a longtime assistant coach, who served as interim head coach.
Kristy Curry was hired as the new head coach during the offseason, following previous stops at Purdue, Texas Tech and Alabama. She has a career record of 555-322 and won in her debut over Furman, 80-54.
After South Florida, the Bruins play four more home games before traveling to take on LSU on Nov. 23. Their next game is Sunday afternoon against Columbia.
This article was written by Sam Dicus
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