Women’s Basketball Picked Sixth In MVC Pre-Season Poll

William Connor

Women's Basketball 10/24/2017 9:00:00 AM

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- The Bradley women's basketball team was picked to finish sixth in the Missouri Valley Conference pre-season poll according to a vote of the league's coaches, sports information directors and media announced Tuesday at the Valley's annual Media Day.

Second-year Bradley head coach Andrea Gorski led the Braves to a seventh-place finish in 2016-17 for the team's best showing since 2012-13. The 2017-18 roster features four of the top five scorers from last year's team which posted a three-win improvement in the team's overall and MVC record, marking the first time a Bradley team did so since 2008-09.

The sixth-place prediction is the highest the Braves have been selected in the pre-season Valley poll since 2012-13 and Bradley's 216 points received were the team's highest since 2002-03 (216). Defending MVC regular-season champion Drake received 31 first-place votes to earn the top spot in the annual poll with 356 points.

The Braves were 77 points ahead of I-74 rival Illinois State, which was selected seventh at 139 points and Bradley was just 15 points back of fifth-place Indiana State (231). Southern Illinois was fourth at 256 points.

One of five teams in the MVC to return at least 70 percent of its scoring and 60 percent of its rebounding from 2016-17, Bradley's 42.4 points per game returning this season ranks fourth in the league. For the first time since 2012-13, the Braves return two players which scored 10 or more points per game the previous year in senior guard Anneke Schlueter (10.5 ppg) and junior forward Vanessa Markert (10.3ppg). In fact, the last time Bradley had four returning players which scored at least 8.0 points per contest the previous year was 1993-94.

While Bradley boasts its largest freshmen class in four years, the Braves have plenty of experience returning with six upperclassmen among this year's nine returning letterwinners. Schlueter is one of four seniors on the roster as Bradley has its largest senior class since 2013-14. In fact, the last time the Braves had a group of four four-year seniors on the roster was 2011-12 (18-16 overall).

In addition to Schlueter and Markert, Bradley returns senior guard Danielle Brewer and 2016-17 All-Freshman team selection Chelsea Brackmann. Brewer scored in double figures in four of the last five games of 2016-17 and seven of the last 10 contests, averaging 10.3 points per game while shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc during that stretch.

Brackmann broke the Bradley freshman records for rebounds, made free throws and free throw attempts in a season in which she became just the second player in program history to collect 235 points, 200 rebounds, 45 assists, 30 blocks and 20 or more steals. The first MVC freshman to reach those marks since at least 1995-96, Brackmann was one of three freshmen in the country to do so in 2016-17.

Bradley will play its only exhibition game Nov. 4, when the Braves host Upper Iowa in a 4 p.m. contest at Renaissance Coliseum. The 2017-18 season opener is slated for Nov. 10 at Renaissance Coliseum against Nebraska-Omaha (7 p.m.).

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