This is year 4 for Coach Hendrix at Miami. We had a top 60 program nationally the two years before she took over, but through graduation and a transfer and bunch of girls decommitting she was left with one first team all MAC and one second team all MAC performer and one freshman recruit who made the all freshman team and not much else. For 3 years now we have battled for the 11th or 12th place in the MAC, and the coaches preseason voting picks us for 11th place this season. There is a very nice article on MURedHawks.com about Coach Hendrix.
Who is gone? 6 girls, all of whom had eligibility remaining.
Katie Davidson averaged double digits as a freshman, played a lot of minutes last year, currently still enrolled at Miami.
Tajah Foster-Walker played one year. I could not find where she has gone.
Vanessa Garrelts graduated and is playing her final year at Canicius, a lower level D1 program located in Buffalo
Edyn Battle averaged in double digits last year. She is a shooting guard and was somewhat blocked by Peyton Scott and Ivy Wolf and had to play most of her minutes as a small forward.
I don’t know where she has gone.
Jada Duckett playing at Old Dominion in Conference USA
Tihanna Fulton graduated I don’t know what she is doing this year.
Who is new?
6-1 Sierra Morrow This is her 4th school in 4 years. She played at two different Junior colleges and last year was the starting center at Bradley, a division 1 Missouri Valley conference team.
She averaged around 11 ppg, 7 rbppg and 2 blocks pg. She is a SR but still has 2 years of eligibility
6-1 Jessie Dai from China. She played her senior year of HS in America and then for a small college. 11ppg and 4.5 ppg and shot 34% on threes at Odessa college in Florida her first year in college. She is a sophomore. When she signed Coach Hendrix indicated that she has a lot of potential, but needed some development.
5-11 Riley Neal from a small Kentucky high school. She averaged 21ppg and 10 rpg as a junior and was listed as one of the top 2 or 3 players in Kentucky. I could find not information on her SR season, not even in her profile on MURedHaw.com. I am not sure why that is.
This is Peyton Scott’s Sr season, although she has another year of eligibility after this season. If she stays healthy and plays here her last two years, she will hold almost all statistical records, including scoring. She was second team all MAC the last two seasons, and was voted first team all MAC in the preseason poll. She averaged 21 as a soph and 19 as a jr., and is near the top of the MAC in most other stat categories. Plus she is a great leader. She needs to cut down her turnovers.
We also return 5-8 sophomore point guard Ivy Wolf who came on late in the season and averaged around 16 ppg the last 10 games of the year. On the season she started every game and averaged 12.6 ppg, 3 rpg, and 3 assists pg. Late in the year she developed her mid range jumper game to go with her 3 point shooting and drives to the bucket. If we can keep these two girls healthy, they are as good as any pair of guards in the MAC, but we are going to need big minutes out of both of them all yearlong as with the 6 girls not returning, we do not have the depth that we would have had.
Just guessing at the starting lineup, as I have not been to any practices or talked to anyone on the staff yet this year. I don’t know if anyone is injured, for instance. So Wolf at point guard and Scott at shooting guard. 5-10 Soph Maddie Cluse who started most of the time last year at one forward. Then I am going to say that 6-1 Bradley transfer Sierra Morrow will start. Depending on whether we start two big girls or one ( I think Morrow could play either a power forward or center) either 6-2 Senior Amani Freeman or 5-11 Fr Riley Neal would be the 5th starter. Freeman was clearly the best of our 4 centers last season, but she did miss over half the year with an injury. She started every game when she was healthy.
So who does that leave for our bench? We have two guards who did not get a lot of playing times in their first season at Miami last year but will get a chance this year. 5-8 rs soph Sydney Watkins is quick and athletic and very good defensively. Last year her main use was to come in and guard the other teams best perimeter player. 5-8 SR Jordan Tuff was used primarily last year as a 3 point shooter, she hit several late threes in the comeback win at Xavier. So they will sub in for Wolf and Scott and play when we use 3 guards.
Inside we have 2 other girls probably coming off the bench. 6-1 sophomore Katy Richardson was in the 4 person center rotation last year and basically played a little in every game. 6-1 sophomore transfer Jessie Dai seems to be more of a perimeter player and a good 3 point shooter. Having watched Coach Hendrix for 3 seasons she does like to get a lot of players into the game, so I kind of expect that these 10 girls will all play some in every game.
There are two other girls listed on the roster, 4th year player 5-11Taylor Boruff and second year player 5-8 Clare Chambers. Last year neither was ever used when the game was in doubt.
Chambers was a recruited walk on and Boruff is a scholarship player who was kind of signed more for her attitude and being a good teammate. With any kind of injury issues, either or both of these two might get some important time.
I do think there is enough talent and experience on this roster to win and surprise the rest of the MAC, but our depth is questionable and injuries, illnesses, etc could be a killer. The loss of Edyn Battle in particular hurts the talent level as she was a weapon who could carry the team at times.
This is a very important year for Coach Hendrix and her staff. The two times David Saylor fired a women’s coach, it was after their 4th year on a 5 year contract. That would indicate that we need to turn the record around this year or we might have a coaching change at the end of the season. But as I said, I think there is enough talent here to win, so we will see how it goes.
First chance to see the women is Tuesday night at 7:00 in Millett vs Division II ( I think) Malone. DII gives scholarships, so they will have some very good players. Then the season gets off to an unusually exciting start with a DH Monday November 7 with the women playing area rival Xavier at 6:00 and the men playing Missouri Valley conference foe Evansville at 8:30. One ticket gets you in for both games, or watch on ESPN+ or 3.