LIU Brooklyn Women's Basketball Weekly Roundup
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#LIUWBB at Buffalo: ESPN3 | Game Notes
BUFFALO, N.Y. - The LIU Brooklyn women's basketball team opens the 2015-16 season this weekend, traveling north to take on Buffalo, Saturday, November 14, in a 1 p.m. game that will air on ESPN3. The game marks the start of the Stephanie Oliver era.
Oliver and her staff will be looking to turn around a team that went 9-21 overall last season, and 6-12 in conference play. The Blackbirds return a veteran squad with no freshmen, and will look for that experience to help propel the program to new heights.
The Blackbirds welcome back one graduate student (Ashley Brown), three seniors (Angelia Allen, Jolanna Ford and Shanice Vaughan), four juniors (Shanovia Dove, Brianna Farris, Mackenzie Freeman and Lily Abreu) and four sophomores (Paris Jones, Stylz Sanders, DeAngelique Waithe and Drew Winter).
ALL-TIME SERIES
• LIU Brooklyn leads the all time series against the Bulls, 2-1. In a match-up that spans back to 1976, the Blackbirds have a slight edge, winning last year to take the series lead.
• December 21, 2015, the two teams met in the Steinberg Wellness Center, with the Blackbirds coming out with a 79-73 win.
• The Blackbirds scored 26 points from the free throw line in the win. The two teams combined for 64 turnovers and 37 steals, while nine players scored in double digits in the clash at the Steinberg Wellness Center.
• The Blackbirds were led by Shanovia Dove's 13 points, while Shanice Vaughan (10 points), Brianna Farris (10 points) and Drew Winter (10 points) all helped propel LIU to the victory. Buffalo was led by 17 points from then-senior Mackenzie Loesing, while Camera Miley (16 points), then-senior
Kristen Sharkey (12 points) and then-senior Alexus Malone (10 points) also did damage for the Bulls.
SCOUTING THE BULLS
• Buffalo is coming off a historic season, and will be looking to improve on 2014-15. UB finished with a 19-13 overall record with a 11-7 mark in the Mid-American Conference. The Bulls secured their first 19-win season since going
19-9 in 2000-01. It was also the first time the program had reached back-to-back winning seasons in more than a dozen years (1999-00, 2001-01). For the first time in school history, the Bulls reached the WNIT postseason tournament. They also advanced to the semifinals of the MAC postseason tournament for the second time in program history as the No. 4 seed.
• Buffalo will be dealing with the loss of their top five scorers, however, including Kristen Sharkey, who led the team in scoring, and is now a member of the coaching staff. The Bulls also lost the 2015 MAC Defensive Player of the Year in Christa Baccas.
• The current Buffalo squad, under fourth-year head coach Felisha Legette-Jacks, has just three upperclassmen on their roster: two juniors and one senior.
NEW BLACKBIRDS
• LIU Brooklyn women's basketball head coach Stephanie Oliver announced Friday that four athletes have signed National Letters of Intent to join the Blackbirds' family for the 2016-17 season. Autumn Ashe, Aja Boyd, Gabrielle
Caponegro and Seneca Richards will play for LIU beginning next fall.