Oct. 13, 2007
WACO, Texas - At the beginning of last season, the Baylor Lady Bears were faced with two major questions, who would step up on the offensive end and who would be the team's leaders. The 2007-08 campaign, which began with the team's first practice on Friday night, will again begin with those same two questions.
Last season Bernice Mosby, who, after transferring from the University of Florida had just one season of eligibility at Baylor, shouldered the bulk of the team's offensive load. The team's leadership came from Mosby and two others, junior Angela Tisdale and senior Latoya Wyatt.
According to head coach Kim Mulkey, who begins her eighth season at the program's helm, "Although we have four returning starters, I think we have a lot of question marks. Who is going to step up and be a consistent scorer for us and who is going to be our leader."
"I don't have the answers to those questions," she added. "With Bernice's departure, we lost a tremendous offensive player and we've got to find somebody, or several somebodies, to produce on the offensive end for us like she did."
The upcoming season marks the first since Mulkey's arrival that no dominant offensive threat returns. "I think you have to adjust to the personnel you have. I don't know that we knew Bernice was going to be a dominant offensive performer for us and yet she evolved into one. I don't know if we'll have one or not, I just know that in order for us to be competitive, we've got to have players play a lot of minutes that didn't last year, we've got to have players score more points that didn't score many points last year. Although we have four returning starters, there are many question marks for me about this team," said Mulkey.
As the lone senior on the team, Tisdale (Austin, Texas/Del Valle HS), the squad's 5-7 point guard, is the Lady Bears' top returning scorer at 10.8 points a game. Two other returning starters, Rachel Allison (Jonesboro, Ark./Jonesboro HS) and Jhasmin Player (Bay City, Texas/Bay City HS), gained valuable experience this past summer when they represented the United States and Athletes in Action as members of the William Jones Cup Team. The duo, which helped the team win a bronze medal, was the team's top two scorers with Allison averaging 10.8 a game and Player contributing 10.2 a contest. In addition, Allison was the squad's best rebounder at 7.0 an outing.
Coach Mulkey will look to the above-mentioned trio to initially provide leadership. "As your only senior, it's has to start with Angela Tisdale and I think Rachel and Jhasmin had very productive summers with USA Basketball and Athletes in Action. I would think it would start with those three," said Mulkey.
Joining Tisdale, Allison and Player as a returning starter is junior guard Jessica Morrow (Humble, Texas/Humble HS) who ranked third on the squad in scoring with 9.6 a contest a year ago.
But, just because Mosby is gone and no dominant offensive threat returns, the cupboard is not bare. The Lady Bears return 73.5 percent of last season's scoring as well as 74.9 percent of their rebounding. Led by freshman Danielle Wilson's (Bay Shore, N.Y./St. John the Baptist HS) record-setting 86 blocks, Baylor led the NCAA in blocked shots and 79.1 percent of those blocks return for 2007-08. All told, Baylor returns eight letterwinners, four of which were starters.
As mentioned before, Tisdale is the top returning scorer at 10.8 a game. Morrow chimed in with 9.6 an outing and Wilson, a 6-3 post who was named to the league's all-rookie squad, chipped in 8.4 a contest. In addition, Wilson set a school record for season blocks (86) which ranked No. 20 nationally.
After Wilson, Player and Allison registered 7.5 and 7.2 points, respectively on the season while Allison ranked No. 2 on the squad in rebounding with 6.1 a contest. Another freshman, Jessika Bradley, made an impact as well. Bradley (Sacramento, Calif./Sacramento HS), a 6-3 forward, tallied 3.2 points and rejected an impressive 26 shots. Two more freshmen, Kaitlin Oberg (Islip, N.Y./St. John the Baptist) and Haylee Abbe (Waco, Texas/Robinson HS), both gained valuable court time which should enable them to achieve more success in the upcoming season.
"I think a strength of our team this year could be the fact that of your eight-player rotation, the majority of them are back from last year's team," said Mulkey. "Another strength could be that we might not have that dominant scorer; you may have multiple players that produce. Sometimes in replacing a super-star player, it takes two or three people and this team may be able to do that.
"I think we're going to have to have an abundance of offensive minded people," she added. "We need players that must understand that we can't rely on one player; we've got to have multiple players be consistent and show up every night."
With just 10 players on this season's roster, depth could potentially pose a problem. "If we stay away from injuries depth may not be a problem. You just play eight or nine players anyway but you worry about injuries and depth," said Mulkey.
With such a young squad, inexperience, especially in the paint, the post position will be an area that the Lady Bears have the most room for improvement in. With Mosby gone, the bulk of the rebounding will be shouldered by a junior (Allison), and two sophomores (Wilson and Bradley). Allison and Wilson saw considerable action last season and gained strength and confidence over the summer while Bradley could be one of the most improved players on the court this season.
Hoping to contribute significantly in their rookie season will be two newcomers, Melissa Jones (Thornton, Colo./Legacy HS) and Kelli Griffin (Houston, Texas/Clear Brook HS). Jones is a 5-11 guard who garnered Colorado Sports Hall of Fame Girls High School Athlete of the Year honors to go along with Colorado Girl's Player of the Year and Gatorade's Colorado Girls' Basketball Player of the Year kudos. She averaged 22 points, 10 rebounds, 5.8 steals, 4.5 assists and 1.7 blocks per game as a senior. Griffin, a 5-8 guard, was sidelined her senior season while rehabilitating a knee injury. She scored 14.5 points, grabbed 4.7 rebounds, dished out 4.7 assists and registered 3.8 steals as a junior.
Two freshmen are not the only newcomers to the Lady Bear program. Richard Barron was hired in May as associate head coach replacing Karen Aston who was named head coach at North Carolina-Charlotte. Barron came to Baylor from Princeton where he served six highly successful seasons as the Tigers' head coach.
Mulkey and her staff have built a schedule that will undoubtedly prepare the Lady Bears for the rigors of the Big 12 Conference, which is one of the nation's toughest women's basketball leagues.
In addition to playing an exhibition contest against the USA Basketball National Team, the Lady Bears' 2007-08 schedule features 13 teams that competed in postseason play last year, including nine that earned NCAA Tournament bids.
In addition, four of the teams featured on the schedule ranked among the nation's top 25 teams at season's end (No. 4 Stanford, No. 9 Oklahoma, No. 16 Texas A&M, No. 24 Iowa State).
Baylor will begin non-conference action by hosting the three-day Basketball Travelers Tip-Off Tournament, Nov. 9, 10 and 11. Joining Baylor in the round-robin event will be Howard, Prairie View A&M and St. Mary's (CA). The Lady Bears' first opponent will be Howard (Nov. 9), followed by St. Mary's (Nov. 10) and Prairie View A&M (Nov. 11). Prairie View A&M made its first NCAA Tournament appearance last season.
UT-Pan American returns to the Ferrell Center on Nov. 15 after a five-year hiatus, and then in three of its next four games, Baylor faces teams that played in the 2007 NCAA Tournament -- California, Southeast Missouri and Stanford. The Lady Bears will host Pacific-10 foe California on Nov. 25 for the third meeting between the schools then travels to Cape Girardeau, Mo., for a return contest against Southeast Missouri on Nov. 29. After taking a break for final exams, Baylor will host Oregon on Dec. 12 before hitting the road for the second time. The Stanford Cardinal, 2007 Pac-10 champions, and Baylor will meet in Maples Pavilion on Dec. 16, marking just the third meeting between the two private schools.
After returning from the California trip, the Lady Bears will host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Dec. 19. In its final game before holiday break, Baylor will travel to New York where it will take on St. John's University on Dec. 22. Completing action for 2007 will be a home contest on Dec. 30 against former Southwest Conference foe Rice, a 2007 Postseason WNIT participant.
With the Big 12 Conference schedule beginning a week later than in previous years, Baylor will complete its non-conference action with home games against North Carolina A&T (Jan. 2) and Texas State (Jan. 4).
The Lady Bears open Big 12 Conference play at Texas Tech on Jan. 9 followed by home contests against Texas A&M (Jan. 12) and Kansas (Jan. 16). Two road games against Oklahoma (Jan. 20) and Missouri (Jan. 23) are followed by two Ferrell Center contests against Nebraska (Jan. 26) and Texas (Jan. 30).
The beginning of February sees Baylor at Kansas State (Feb. 2) and at Oklahoma State (Feb. 5) before returning home to host Texas Tech on Feb. 9. The rest of the league schedule sees the Lady Bears alternating home and away contests. Baylor will be at Texas (Feb. 13) before hosting Oklahoma on Feb. 17. An away game with Iowa State (Feb 23) precedes a Ferrell Center matchup against Colorado on Feb. 27. The conference portion of Baylor's schedule will be completed in March as Baylor plays at Texas A&M (March 1) and hosts Oklahoma State on March 6.
The 2008 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship will return to Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo., March 11-13, 15.
"When I first took this job, we scheduled games to build confidence and games to help us get away from the losing mentality. At that time I commented that when this program establishes a winning attitude then we would schedule tougher non-conference opponents. We are at a point with our program where losses won't devastate you. Win or lose, this program has a national reputation now, and we want to play opponents that will help us maintain what we have built. You look at our schedule, we play 13 teams that made postseason play," said Mulkey.
