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The Texas State women's basketball team looks to build off a successful 2011-12 season, its first under head coach Zenarae Antoine, when it tips off a new season, Friday against Belmont at 5 p.m., at Strahan Coliseum. This season will mark a change in conferences for the Bobcats as they move to the WAC after 25 years in the Southland Conference. Below is information about this year's squad.
Guards
One of seven returning players for Texas State is senior Diamond Ford. Ford is eighth on the all-time Texas State scoring list with 1,262 points, becoming the 13th player in school history to score 1,000 points. She led the Southland Conference and was 30th in the country with 18.5 points per game a year ago. Ford finished the season with 574 points, the fourth highest total in a single season in program history.
Diamond will be joined in the backcourt by returners Kaylan Martin, Taylor McGilbra and Bree Dawson. Martin took over the starting point guard role last season for the final 14 games. In those games she averaged 7.5 points per game along with totaling 53 assists in those contests. In one of her first games as a starter, Martin helped the Bobcats go on a 27-4 run to end the game against UT Arlington, scoring a season-high 16 points.
McGilbra was starting to heat up last season before a knee injury derailed her season. In her final two games of the year against Kennesaw State and Belmont, McGilbra had two sequences of hitting left corner threes before making two free throws her next trip down, to help the Bobcats come back for victories in both games.
Like Ford, Dawson is entering her final year at Texas State. She is coming off a career-year in which she made nine field goals, of which four were from three-point range.
Wings/Forwards
Leading the pair of returning forwards is Ashley Ezeh, the other All-Conference performer from last year. She averaged 14.5 points per game and was 30th in the NCAA with a .503 field goal percentage. She had seven double-doubles last year and against Sam Houston State in the Southland Conference Tournament, Ezeh was 10-of-11 from the free throw line, as she poured in 24 points to go with 11 rebounds in helping the Bobcats to their first SLC Tournament win since 2003.
Also returning will be Jasmine Baugus. Baugus proved to be a valuable commodity off the bench last year, and will need to provide leadership as she hopes to transition to a starter this year. Against UT-Pan American last season, Baugus keyed a second half comeback, grabbing nine rebounds to go with seven points.
Newcomers
The Bobcats' future looks to be as bright as the present, with the fusion of seven newcomers to the team this year. The team features four freshmen, Erin Peoples, Raven Burns, Ayriel Anderson and Jaimie Grace, which made up the No. 76 recruiting class in the country a year ago. In the spring the Bobcats added two Big 12 transfers Jacqueline Jeffcoat (Oklahoma) and Kileah Mays (Iowa State). They join senior newcomer Morgan Passino who will serve as a backup to Ashley Ezeh.
Peoples, Burns and Anderson are the three freshmen who figure to see the most playing time after Grace suffered a knee injury in summer workouts and will miss at least the first part of the year. Jeffcoat and Mays will have to sit out this year per NCAA Transfer rules.
Schedule
The schedule looks much different than in previous years due to the change in conference from the Southland to the WAC. The Bobcats will see every team twice, once at home and on the road. This will lend itself to new roadtrips to places like Seattle, San Jose, Denver, Las Cruces, N.M., as well as familiar trips to San Antonio and Arlington.
Texas State also faces a daunting nonconference schedule. The team goes on the road to face North Texas, Oklahoma State, Houston and UTEP as well as old Southland Conference foe Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Among the teams coming into Strahan Coliseum will be Rice, TCU, Belmont and Kennesaw State.
