2015-16 NCC Women's Basketball Preview

Today begins one of the most fun times of the year for me. Gyms will be filled, floors will be shined, and thousands of players will set foot into these gyms filled with the hope that every new season brings. For me, I've had eight or nine months for my vocal cords to recover, just in time to do it all over again for my fifth season.

In prior years, I have done one combined season preview for both the men's and women's basketball teams at North Central College. Partially because the schedule doesn't align, but also partially because I continue to believe that each team deserves its own post, I'm separating the two this year, and with the schedule being weird this season, we get to cover the women first.

North Central Cardinals
2014-15: 22-6 (10-4), 2nd in CCIW; Lost in NCAA Tournament First Round

If you were a regular reader of Confessions of a Sportscaster last winter, you will see a theme from November through March, culminating in a season recap piece full of praise. Other than the legendary 1983 team that won the national title, there hasn't been a ton to get excited about on the women's side in Gregory Arena. Last year's team changed that. They rewrote the program's history books last year with a blistering start and found their way into the Top 25 polls for the first time ever before making their first NCAA Tournament in 31 years. They also captured my heart as my favorite team that I've ever been a part of, which isn't entirely fair for all future iterations of this squad, but it's hard for any other team to combine the on-court success, off-court connectedness, and "shock-the-nation" capability that the 2014-15 team had. To me though, that team is a building block for a program that should now be on the nation's radar.

The good news for this season is that an overwhelming majority of the roster from last year returns, and the experience they gained last year is an underrated intangible that can't be discounted. The bad news is that some of the pieces they did lose last year were major cogs in the machine. Tess Godhardt was last year's top scorer at 17.9 points per game and a defining inside presence that balanced out a three-heavy offense. She was also arguably the team's emotional leader and one of their captains. Point guard Bobbi Johns was the main floor general, leading the team in assists (and finishing third in program history in that category) while adding 6.9 points a game. Maryssa Cladis was a blend of the two, scoring eight points a game while finishing second on the team in assists. All three have graduated, though Cladis remains at North Central as graduate assistant coach for this year's team. Even so, this is a more significant loss than it might appear on the surface.

That said, there are still a ton of fantastic pieces in place from last year's squad. The heirs apparent at point guard are in-system, particularly with Corrine Rowe, who was second on the team in scoring last year with 9.1 points per game. She's an excellent ball handler (albeit one I hope doesn't over-rely on it) and can shoot (30.2 percent from deep last year). Mayson Whipple is also a good point guard (6.9 points per game, 28 percent from deep), and these two having a year of experience under their belts will greatly help this team. There are plenty of other solid shooters on this team in the backcourt as well, with players like Miranda Grizaffi (5.4 PPG, 28.8 percent from three) expected to step up this year.

The frontcourt will dearly miss Tess Godhardt, but there are still some good forwards on this squad. Coach Roof spoke highly about Anita Sterling, who averaged six points a game and hit 30 percent of her threes while playing solid post defense and probably winning last year's Sophie Newson Award for drawing charges, but I don't know because it's not kept as an official stat (something I will lobby for until the day I die). If she can take another step forward offensively, especially in the paint, the Cardinals will benefit. The key piece here though far and away is junior Jamie Cuny. The 6'2" Naperville native poured kerosene on the record books last year before dropping a match on them. There are six games in North Central history where a Cardinal has gotten at least six blocks; Cuny has five of them, including breaking the record twice with an eight block game in the legendary Millsaps game last year and 10 at Carroll as part of the program's first triple-double. She finished with 91 blocks last year, which not only obliterated the single-season record, but she's the all time program leader in blocks... with two full seasons left. That's probably a record that will stand forever. Cuny is also a strong shooter (34.8 percent last year, which is actually the fourth-best mark in program history among Cardinals with at least 100 attempts).

The other advantage is that overall, this is a pretty young team. There are only three seniors on the roster: Erica Buck, who averages about eight minutes and 1.6 rebounds per game at the forward spot, and Kim Wilson, a key piece of the last three teams who had a down year offensively (4.0 PPG and below 30 percent shooting) but plays strong defense and was a good offensive piece the prior two years. I think she rebounds this season. The third is a sight for sore eyes: Lauren Hernandez. A knee injury ended her 2013-14 season and she missed all of last year with another. From what I've heard, she's looked good in rehab, and she did play in some preseason scrimmages and should be good to go for the opener on Friday.

There are three new faces on this year's squad. The Cardinals added a little size in forwards Selena Juarez, a freshman out of Woodstock and Aaliyah Johnson, a junior transfer from Kentucky. Both are 5'8" and will likely try to play some inside-outside roles in the offense this year. Johnson played two years at Lincoln Trail Community College, including 25 games last year where she averaged about three rebounds a game. Juarez averaged 7.5 points per game as a senior at Woodstock High School to help lead them to a class 3A regional championship. The Cardinals also got Oswego native Siarra O'Neill to reinforce the guard line. Doing a little research, O'Neill can shoot, hitting threes at a roughly 40 percent clip towards the end of last season en route to a class 4A regional title.

Photo from NCC Women's Basketball Instagram

It's hard to say if this year's schedule will have a similar "bonding" road trip like last year's California swing. The team will play in a couple tournaments besides the annual Tip Off Tournament: they travel to Colorado Springs on Thanksgiving weekend for the Colorado College Thanksgiving Classic and play in Ohio after Christmas at Otterbein's Smokey Ballinger Classic. Much of the rest of the non-conference slate is the conclusion of home-and-homes with Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Dubuque, and Carroll, who will return to the CCIW next season. There was another matchup that was actually dropped a few months ago forcing a quick search for a replacement game, which the Cardinals will play on Friday in the comforts of home, but it will be against a tough opponent in tenth-ranked Calvin College, who hosted the group North Central played in in the NCAA Tournament back in March. Conference schedule-wise, it's not too bad. They have three separate stretches of back to back road games, with two of them sandwiching a home date with Augie. They make up for that with three in a row at home and five of six where I get to help provide some home court advantage.

The CCIW, once again, will be a gauntlet in January and February. North Central finally has some respect, being picked to finish third in the conference and earning Wheaton's first place vote. Looking at the rest of the conference, defending champion Wheaton returns basically everyone from last year's squad and is the unanimous pick to defend their crown (and they have an absolute gauntlet of a non-conference schedule). Elmhurst is going to be tough again even with the loss of All-American Fiona McMahon, but I feel like they have her heir apparent in Mikaela Eppard even though they are picked to finish sixth; that seems too low. After that... I feel like there's a dropoff. Carthage is consistently good, but I didn't see Alexis Hahn, their best player, on the roster when I did my initial research, and even though they tend to reload well, I'm not sure if it'll be enough despite their second place standing. Millikin has a ton of youth to surround Alyssa Saklak, so there's probably some talent there, but it's unproven. I have no idea if last year was a blip for Illinois Wesleyan, but I don't know that they necessarily added any strong pieces, so it might be another rough year in Bloomington. I've thought North Park was on the way up the last couple of years, but despite a decent backcourt I don't know that they have the talent to compete with the top of the conference. Finally, Augustana has been at the bottom of the CCIW for a few years now, and aside from Marissa Pezzopane, I'm not sure that they have the firepower to keep up with the heavyweights.

Here's the official CCIW preview for the Cardinals:

Before I get into my final thoughts and official prediction, there's one more thing that I need to cover, and that's rule changes the NCAA passed back in June. Most of these are relatively minor, though for a team that presses all the time, restrictions on refreshing the ten second backcourt count will probably result in a couple extra forced turnovers over the course of the season. The biggest rule change comes with the clock: instead of two 20 minutes halves, women's basketball will now consist of four 10 minute quarters. I wasn't super impressed with this when I first heard about this, thinking about pace of the game and the additional timeout that will automatically be granted, but there's a reason for the rule change that makes sense and with which I agree. With quarters, a change to fouls and the bonus also happened: the fifth team foul in each quarter will result in two free throws, but the team foul count will reset after each quarter (unless the game goes to overtime). Looking at the box score from NCC's elimination last year where they got outshot at the line 40-20... this might be a welcome change. It should also hopefully speed up the game a little bit, or at least that's the logic behind the change. We'll see.

All in all, this is still going to be a good Cardinal team, and I believe one of the top four in the CCIW. They clearly don't have the same firepower, at least on paper, as they did last season, but this system can be a nightmare for opponents to play against. Given the state of the CCIW, there are clear favorites, but I don't see why the Cardinals can't make it back into the CCIW Tournament for the third time in four years.. and once there, who knows what may happen?

2015 Prediction: 16-9 (9-5 CCIW)