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Race for 2009 C-USA Women’s Basketball Title Expected To Be Tight
Southern Miss, SMU and UTEP have the preseason edge.

IRVING, Texas – After advancing to the third round of the 2008 WNIT, Southern Miss enters the season as Conference USA women’s basketball preseason favorite to win the 2009 regular season title as voted on by the league’s head coaches. The Golden Eagles collected eight firstâ€

Southern Miss makes sense - they're pretty loaded coming back, if I remember right - but to pick SMU second is illogical, at best. I think we'll be better (maybe much better) than many think, but how can you pick us second with the losses of Dodds, Shepherd, Cobb, etc.?

I would have picked us fourth or fifth ... and then enjoyed the ride as we shock some folks.

UTEP also lost man-eater Piekarska, right? That's a huge [sic] loss.

Has all the locker room drama been put behind us?

Yes, we lost a lot, but Wills, Gilliam and Samuels are a very strong returning core, and we have a number of role players back too. UTEP on the other hand basically used an 8 player rotation last year and 5 of them graduated. Hughes and one other player return for them with regular starting experience. Their entire returning lineup only contributed around 25 pts/game last year. Hughes will be the best player in the league, but I don't think she'll get much help.

smu diamond m wrote:UTEP also lost man-eater Piekarska, right? That's a huge [sic] loss.

Yeah, but they also lost Natasha Lacy - who's a hell of a lot better than Piekarska - and they also lost Kasia Krezel, who might have been the most underrated player in C-USA last year. Jareica Hughes - the preseason CUSA player of the year, and deservedly so - is going to get gang-tackled this year, and there's no way she keeps her cool through it all. She's going to be playing one-on-five all the time.

MustangStealth is right - Wills, Gilliam and Samuels are studs. But mark my words, don't forget about Alice Severin, and Christine Elliott is going to be an awesome player, especially for a freshman.

Didn't she foul out last year against us in the tourney? She might get eaten alive this year...

Hughes and that other tall guard they have fouled out against us. Last year, she was effective because she's a great athlete and she led a very balanced team. This year, she's going to get swarmed all day long. She's good enough at the FT line that she'll beat some teams by herself, but she's also enough of a self-absorbed star that it should be possible to rattle her by defending her all over the court. I bet she doesn't make it through the season without a meltdown, either on or off the court.

Like when Jillian Samuels starts dropping 3s over her all day!

Vitale wrote:. . . I bet she doesn't make it through the season without a meltdown. . .

. . . or an injury. . .