University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Women's Basketball Team Holds First Practice
10/5/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Oct. 5, 2010
HATTIESBURG, Miss. - Southern Miss head coach Joye Lee-McNelis welcomed eight newcomers and five returnees to the floor on Tuesday afternoon when the Lady Eagles began their first practice of the season in Reed Green Coliseum.
Southern Miss returns three starters and only five letterwinners from the last year's team that finished the season 9-21 last year. Seniors Tanesha Washington and Ashlee Kelly are two of the returning starters from last season along with sophomore Danielle Johnson. Seniors Geneshia Dunbar and Brittany Johnson round out the remaining letterwinners form the 09-10 squad. Dunbar started 11 games while Johnson saw considerable playing time before she was sidelined with a knee injury that required midseason surgery.
Eight newcomers will don the black and gold for the first time this season - Janairrika Bland, Nia Bradford, Jamierra Faulkner, Tandrea High, Niesha Pierce, Nitesha Pierce, Ewa Urbanowska and Rachel Vigers. This group brings talent and excitement to the court but will have to adjust to the collegiate game.
With eight newcomers, who include the six freshmen and two junior college transfers, instruction takes up a large part of practice.
"The most exciting thing about today is we're going to get to see what we look like as a team," McNelis said. "We still don't have everybody on the floor because of injuries, but we have eight and maybe we will be able to get a few things done and our coaches will have to step in. It's going to give us an idea as to how much we learned in our preseason and how far we've come just in our drills and skill development. We'll start by putting in our transition game today, work a little bit on our full court defenses and see how quickly they pick up. When you have as many new players as we have, there's a lot that we don't know. So, the great thing about starting practice today is we will have an idea about what we have."
Southern Miss will play an exhibition game on Nov. 3 against the University of Mobile at 7 p.m., before opening the regular season at home against McNeese State in a 12 p.m., start.
