No. 1 again? Ashland women's hoops enters 2023-24 as national title favorite

Ashland University’s women’s basketball team will start its 2023-24 season where it ended the 2022-23 campaign — as the No. 1 team in NCAA Division II.

And why not?

The Eagles return three starters and four other players who played at least 15 minutes a game from the school’s 37-0 National Championship team. That means AU will begin this year as the unanimous No. 1 pick in the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Division II preseason poll and also the preseason choice as the top team in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.

The first tests for AU will come this weekend with a pair of home games. The Eagles will play host to Wayne State on Friday and the University of Indianapolis on Saturday. Both games are scheduled for 5:30 p.m. starts at Kates Gymnasium.

While the cast of players is largely the same as last year, this group of Eagles will have a new look, will be unique and will have an opportunity to compose its own chapter.

“We have a new team,” said AU coach Kari Pickens, who enters her sixth season with a 142-15 record. “While we do have a lot of experience coming back, our identity as a team is going to look slightly different than what it did last year.

“With the success we were able to have last year it would be easy to stick to exactly what made us successful. But we have a new team. We have different players, new strengths, new weaknesses.

“We have a lot of room for growth and development and I’m excited for where we’re at right now and the potential for where we can go. But we have to write our own story. Last year was a really, really fun and special year but it was last year.”

The three returning starters from last year’s team include reigning GMAC Player of the Year Annie Roshak, junior forward Hayley Smith and junior point guard Morgan Yoder.

Roshak, a 6-1, fifth-year forward, is one of the most decorated players in AU program history. She enters the season with 1,861 career points, the fifth most ever at AU, and needs 435 points to become the school’s all-time scorer in women’s basketball.

Her 57 percent career field goal percentage ranks third all-time and she leads the way with a career 86 percent at the foul line.

Her 2022-23 accolades include Division 2 Conference Commissioners Association Midwest Region women’s Student-Athlete of the Year, AU nominee for NCAA Woman of the Year, GMAC Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year, GMAC Women’s Athlete of the Year, D-II Elite Eight Most Outstanding Player and all-tournament team, WBCA first-team All-American, Midwest Region all-tournament team, GMAC Player of the Year and GMAC Tournament Most Valuable Player.

In just 24 minutes per game, she averaged 14.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, one steal and one block.

She shot 63.0 percent from the field, 48.4 percent from three-point range, and a school-record 92.9 percent from the foul line.

Smith, a 6-1 forward, earned GMAC first-team recognition last season when she scored 11.3 points per game with 6.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists. She shot 61 percent from the field and 76 percent from the free-throw line.

Yoder, a 5-8 point guard, started 30 times during the national-championship season. She averaged 6.2 points, 3.1 assists, 1.9 rebounds and 1.0 steal in 22 minutes per game.

But that’s just where the experience on the roster starts. Savaya Brockington, a 5-4 senior guard, started 10 times last year, including all six NCAA Tournament games when Yoder was sidelined with an injury.

She was a GMAC All-Defensive Team pick while leading the Eagles with 113 assists, averaging 9.1 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.7 steals in 21 minutes per game.

Macy Spielman, a 5-10, fifth-year guard, played in all 37 games last year. She averaged 7.1 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.6 assists last year, after earning second-team All-GMAC honors as a starter the season before.

Zoe Miller, a 5-11 junior forward, got five starts last year when she was named a second team all-GMAC player. Mostly coming off the bench, she scored 12.1 points per game, with 3.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists while shooting 60 percent from the field.

Sarah McKee, a 6-2 junior forward, played in all 37 games last season, averaging 3.7 points and 2.5 rebounds per game.

“We have a lot of hungry girls,” Pickens said. “We have players who came off the bench last year who want to try to earn a starting role. We have players who were starters last year that are getting challenged. There is just a ton of really healthy competition.

“But we need to make sure that we remember that even if someone is starting or coming off the bench that every role is really important. We’ve really tried to deemphasize starting and emphasize what lineups are good together because different players play well together.

“We want to make sure with the depth that we have that we’re capitalizing on that.”

All that experience will be bolstered by the return of 5-8 fifth-year guard Erin Daniels and 5-10 fifth-year guard Molly Dever, and the addition of 5-10 freshman guard Lexi Howe.

After four years as a player, Daniels served as a graduate assistant coach in 2022-23. As an AU senior, she averaged 6.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game, shooting 43 percent from 3-point range and 84 percent at the free-throw line.

Dever is back and full-go after sitting out all of last year with a knee injury.

Because the Eagles graduated Hallie Heidemann, the school’s all-time leading three-point shooter, and Maddie Maloney, a steady leader and three-point shooter, this year’s team might rely more on its defense, at least at the beginning.

Howe can be a disruptive force on the ball, and the 6-2 McKee is learning to be more of a perimeter defender.

“I think we’re going to be a much improved defensive team from last year,” Pickens said. “We were a good defensive team last year … but our length and athleticism has increased this year.

“It’s something that we have to capitalize on. Our offense, I think, is one of the things we’re still trying to navigate, we’re still growing into. But I do know that our defense and how fast we can play is going to be even more improved than in previous years.”

In two seasons of GMAC play, the Eagles have been dominant with a 41-1 record in the regular season and a 5-0 mark in league tournament games. But Kentucky Wesleyan and Trevecca Nazarene were NCAA Regional Tournament teams a year ago and should challenge again this year.

Providing additional depth is Thomas More, which moves up to Division II and the GMAC this year after winning the NAIA women’s basketball National Championship last season.

“We’re all starting off the year zero and zero,” Pickens said. “No one cares that we’re preseason whatever. We have to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves and just focusing on what we need to do to continue to grow.

“We have an experienced team and no one is satisfied with what we did last year. We have high goals and high expectations and honestly there is real excitement for this year. There’s a hunger.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Women's College Basketball: previewing the 2023-24 Ashland Eagles