St. Peter, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus women’s basketball team will begin its 2014-15 campaign this weekend when it hosts the Gustavus Tip Off Classic at Gus Young Court. Four teams representing the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (Gustavus), the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (Crown and Martin Luther), and the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (Buena Vista) will make the trek to St. Peter to take part in the non-conference action on Saturday, Nov. 15 and Sunday, Nov. 16.
This weekend’s Tip Off Classic will begin on Saturday afternoon with Buena Vista University taking on Martin Luther College at 1:00 p.m. Following the conclusion of the afternoon’s opening contest, host Gustavus Adolphus will face Crown College at 3:00 p.m. The 2014 Gustavus Tip Off Classic will come to a conclusion on Sunday, Nov. 16. Buena Vista will face Crown at 1:00 p.m. and Martin Luther will take on Gustavus at 3:00 p.m.
LIVE COVERAGE
Stats
GUSTAVUS LINKS
Roster | Schedule | 2013-14 Statistics
LAST SEASON AT A GLANCE – Thanks to a late surge during which the Gustavus women’s basketball team won seven of eight games from late-January to mid-February, the Gusties were able finish sixth in the conference standings with a record of 11-11 and earn a trip to the MIAC Playoffs for an MIAC-best 14th consecutive season. Gustavus finished the year with a record of 14-12 overall after falling on the road to No. 3-seeded St. Thomas 66-51 in the quarterfinals of the MIAC Playoffs.
Guard Julia Dysthe ’14 and post Karina Schroeder were both honored as members of the All-Conference Team following the season. Dsythe, a first time all-conference performer, scored a career-high 382 points (13.7 ppg) and shot 42.1-percent from the field. Schroeder, a member of the MIAC All-Rookie Team last season, established herself as one of the top post players in the league after averaging 14.2 points per game, shooting 53.3-percent from the field, and bringing down an average of 8.9 rebounds per game. She led the team in all three categories and finished with the second-best field goal shooting percentage in the league at 51.6-percent against league opponents.
Junior forward Lindsey Johnson returns to Gustavus’s lineup as the top returning scorer from a year ago.
ROSTER BREAKDOWN – Laurie Kelly’s 2014-15 21-player roster is made up of two seniors, five juniors, seven sophomores, and seven first-year players. The Gusties return 13 letter winners from last year’s squad and welcome a total of nine new players into the program. To go along with seven first-years, senior Maddie Ehrich (Eden Prairie, Minn.) and sophomore Kelsey Carpenter (St. Peter, Minn.) are also new to the team. This year’s squad is also made up of 95-percent Minnesota natives with the lone out-state individual being two-sport athlete (volleyball and basketball) Kelle Nett (Jr., Spring Valley, Ill.).
MIAC UNDERGOES SCHEDULE CHANGE – With the 2014-15 season about to start, women’s basketball in the MIAC will undergo a fairly significant change this season in regards to its schedule. In the past, the MIAC teams played a full double round-robin, with a home-and-home series against each of the league’s teams for a 22-game schedule. With a max of 25 games allowed in NCAA Division III and several three-games-per-week needed to accommodate such a massive conference schedule, the MIAC ‘s coaches and administrators have adjusted women’s basketball to a new 18-game conference slate.
Now, each MIAC team is guaranteed to play the other 11 teams once, and seven of the 11 teams twice, which will be selected at random each season. The new schedule will certainly make the race for the MIAC title interesting. With so many teams typically in contention, now they’ll have fewer games to state their case in the conference, but the scheduling flexibility should result in some exciting new nonconference and tournament opportunities for all 12 MIAC teams.
TOP RETURNERS
Lindsey Johnson, Post (Jr., Edina, Minn.) | Played in all 28 games and averaged 24 minutes last season…Returns as the team’s leading scorer from a year ago after averaging 8.6 points per game…Shot 39.3-percent (81-206) from the field and brought down a total of 119 rebounds (4.6 rpg)…Johnson averaged 14.6 points per game and shot 47.1-percent from the field over Gustavus’s last five games of the 2013-14 season.
Hannah Howard, Post (So., St. Paul, Minn.) | Played in 20 games and averaged 17.3 minutes her rookie season…Averaged 4.5 points per game and shot 30.7-percent from the field…Brought down 61 rebounds for an average of .31 boards per game.
BY THE NUMBERS
14: The number of years Gustavus has qualified for the MIAC Playoffs. Since the initiation of the six-team MIAC Tournament in the 2000-01 season, the Gustavus women’s basketball team has qualified for the conference playoffs every year.
60: The percentage of last year’s scoring lost due to the departures of Karina Schroeder, Julia Dyste ’14, and Britta Rinke ’14.
12-2 – Gustavus’s record when leading at the half last season. The Gusties were 2-10 when trailing at the half.
DID YOU KNOW? – The Gustavus women’s basketball team took an overseas trip to Italy and Switzerland in early June. Over the course of their 10-day excursion, the Gusties took take in the sights of Milan, Lake Como, Lugano in Switzerland, Venice, Montecatini, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, and Rome. The team also played a pair of friendship games against the ASD Basketball Costa women’s team and the Usmate Club team in Como.