History, history and a little more history will be made Monday night at Freedom Hall.
The Bellarmine University women’s basketball team is set to host Ball State at 6:30 p.m. (ET) in its Division I debut. The contest will mark the Knights’ first DI home game. And it will represent BU’s first with Freedom Hall as its home venue.
Due to the effects of the pandemic on the team, Bellarmine’s season opener has been delayed about three weeks. Ball State, by contrast, is entering its fifth game.
ABOUT BALL STATE
Ball State (1-3) is coming off a 58-54 road win over Western Kentucky on Dec. 5. The Cardinals had opened the season with three straight losses to Milwaukee (67-56), IUPUI (73-49) and Eastern Michigan (77-58).
Against WKU, Ball State came up big in the fourth quarter in putting together a 13-4 run to take control. It was a tight contest featuring eight ties and seven lead changes. Thelma Dis Agustsdottir and Essence Booker scored 15 points apiece while Annie Rauch recorded her first career double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Maliah Howard-Bass chipped in 10 points.
Dis Agustsdottir has been Ball State’s top scorer (14.5) and rebounder (7.0) in the early going. She also leads the team with seven 3-pointers made. Booker is averaging 11.0 points per game for the Cardinals and hit 10 of her 11 free throws.
Last season, Ball State engineered one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NCAA history. After going 8-23 in 2018-19, the Cardinals posted a 21-10 record in 2019-20. The 13-game turnaround led all NCAA Division I women’s basketball programs and ranks 30th all-time in NCAA history. Ninth-year Coach Brady Sallee guided the Cardinals to six straight Women’s National Invitation Tournaments, a WNIT Final 16 appearance, a Mid-American Conference West Division title (2014), seven MAC Tournament appearances and four 20-plus win seasons.
BELLARMINE SEASON OUTLOOK
After a long and rich history in Division II, Bellarmine is set to enter a new era.
The 2020-21 season represents the first in Division I for Bellarmine, which joined the ASUN Conference after previously being a founding member of DII’s Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Bellarmine exited DII after making 16 appearances in the NCAA II Tournament, four of which included trips to the Elite Eight with one of those (1994) extending into the Final Four. The Knights were a fixture in the GLVC Tournament, earning a spot in the event in all 23 years of its existence while capturing the championship in 2016 under Head Coach Chancellor Dugan and advancing to the title game in 2019.
In 2019-20, Bellarmine went 18-11 and made the GLVC Tournament semifinals for the fourth time in five seasons. The Knights hit their stride late, winning six of their final seven regular-season games.
Bellarmine lost a significant amount of experience from last year’s squad as five seniors departed the program, including Mikayla Berry and Mallory Schwartz, who had both earned All-GLVC accolades in their respective careers, and Ally Mayhaus, who left ranked third in career blocks.
However, in senior guards and team captains Breia Torrens and Tasia Jeffries, Bellarmine’s two most highly decorated players from last season are back. Torrens was a first-team All-GLVC selection while Jeffries garnered third-team acknowledgement. They reunited last year after Jeffries transferred to Bellarmine from St. Louis University; they won a pair of Kentucky state titles together at Butler Traditional High School in Louisville.
Torrens is set to become a four-year starter. She earned a spot on the ASUN Preseason All-Conference Team after averaging a team-best 13.2 points per game last season while amassing team highs in 3-pointers made (61) and steals (54). Her 2.3 assists per game ranked second on the team. Torrens delivered the two highest-scoring individual performances of last season when she poured in 34 points at McKendree and 29 at home against No. 1 Drury. With 745 career points heading into the season, Torrens will look to become the 29th member of the program’s 1,000-point club.
Jeffries followed Torrens at 10.6 points per game as she knocked down 50 3-pointers, a team-best 87.8 percent of her free throws and averaged 3.1 rebounds. Jeffries canned six 3-pointers at Rockhurst in scoring 24 points, which ranked as Bellarmine’s third-highest individual scoring performance of the season.
Bellarmine’s third senior, forward Lauren Deel, was a part-time starter last season and has over 40 starts to her name along with nearly 600 career points. Deel averaged 6.9 points and 3.2 rebounds last season. Junior guard Kathleen Scott made 11 starts last season and accumulated 26 starts over her first two years.
Bellarmine’s sizable junior class also includes guards Bailee Harney and Presley Brown, forward/center Danielle Feldkamp and forward Sheniqua Coatney, a Louisiana-Monroe transfer who will begin playing for the Knights next season due to NCAA transfer rules. Bellarmine’s lone sophomore is guard Ashlee Harris, who saw action in all 29 games last season.
In addition to Coatney, Bellarmine’s newcomers include four true freshmen. They are guards Hannah Farrell, Claire Knies and Lydia Reimbold and forward Lucy Robertson.
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