Game NotesNEW ORLEANS, La. – The New Orleans Privateers women's basketball team will open up the 2014-15 regular season on Friday by hosting the West Alabama Tigers at the Human Performance Center. Tip is slated for 5 p.m.
The Privateers will look to win their first season opener since the 2009-10 season when New Orleans opened up that year with a road victory over current Southland foe, McNeese State. Head Coach
Keeshawn Davenport enters her fourth season at the helm with a roster that has a mix of youth with four returning guards from last year's team.
The top two leading scorers from the 2013 squad are both returning from their first seasons on the Lakefront. Sophomore
Octavia Wilson led the Privateers in scoring with 9.3 points per game and connected on 44 three-pointers. Junior
Danielle Davis averaged 8.4 points per contest in her first season in New Orleans and led the team in minutes (32.5 per game).
New Orleans also brings back several post players from last year's team who are healthy after battling injuries for portions of 2013.
Mathilde Fogelstrom returns for her junior season after landing second on the team in blocks despite missing 12 games.
Yasmin Taylor averaged 6.1 rebounds per game and pulled down 58 offensive boards in 18 games. Taylor missed 11 contests due to injury last season.
This will be the first time the Privateers and Tigers will meet in program history. West Alabama is a Division II school out of the Gulf South Conference and the Tigers finished last season at 5-22 with a 2-18 mark in conference play.
West Alabama made a coaching switch in the offseason, hiring Rusty Cram in July. Cram has spent 18 years as a head coach with two stops at Georgia Southern and Belhaven. Overall, Cram has a 267-263 record and is the winningest women's basketball coach in Georgia Southern history.
The Tigers lost their 2013-14 leading scorer, Quentinette Odom to graduation. Odom averaged 11.8 points per game in her senior season. Leading the returning players for West Alabama are Kelcia Bufkin and Jada Williams who averaged 8.7 and 8.0 points per game respectively. Williams also led the team in assists with 63.
This will be the first Privateers women's basketball contest since Dec. 30, 2010 when New Orleans hosted Auburn-Montgomery at the Chamber of Horrors. This will also mark the first of four non-conference home games for New Orleans.
There will be high definition video of the game available to subscribers of UNO Showcase. Also, for those attending, there will be a postgame party in the HPC.
