ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- For the second consecutive year, Bradley Women's Basketball 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 Thursday.
The Braves are coming off back-to-back seventh-place league finishes in each of third-year head coach Andrea Gorski's first two seasons on the Bradley bench. BU returns its top three scorers from the previous season and seven of its top nine scorers from last year's team which posted Bradley's highest overall win total (13) since the 2012-13 campaign (14).
Defending Valley champion Drake was picked as the preseason favorite, garnering 35 of 40 first-place votes and 363 points. Northern Iowa received four first-place selections and was second with 326 points. Missouri State earned the other first-place vote and ranked third in the pre-season poll (287 points). Bradley collected 193 points to edge out Indiana State (7th - 192 points) by one point for sixth in the poll. The Braves were 30 points behind fifth-place Illinois State (223 points).
Bradley's returners combined to average 47.4 points and 26.7 rebounds per outing with only Drake and Northern Iowa returning more than the Braves in both categories. The Braves return their top three scorers from the previous season for the first time in over a decade (2006-07) and Bradley was the only MVC team in 2017-18 to have six players average at least 6.5 points per contest.
While BU returns a bulk of its scoring and rebounding from the previous year, the Braves still have a fairly young squad with only four of the 15 players in 2018-19 boasting more than one year of experience at the NCAA Division I level.
Bradley ranked third in the MVC in both scoring offense and defense, marking the first time in program history the Braves were in the top three in both categories in the same season. In fact, BU led the Valley in rebounding (39.5 per game) to rank 85th in the country and Bradley was among the top 80 in the nation in both field goal percentage defense (64th) and three-point field goal percentage defense (79th).
The 2017-18 season marked the third consecutive year Bradley improved its overall record (first time since 2006-07 through 2008-09) and the 2018-19 squad has a chance to make it the first time in program history the Braves have posted an improved winning percentage in four consecutive seasons.
Sophomore guard Gabi Haack paced Bradley in scoring at 10.5 points per game last year to become just the third freshman to lead the team in scoring. She was second in rebounding on the team (5.9 per game) and also ranked second in the MVC in three-point field goal percentage at 41.2 percent from beyond the arc. Haack joined Big Ten Freshman of the Year and Second Team All-Big Ten honoree Destiny Pitts of Minnesota as the only freshmen in the nation in 2017-18 to collect 300 points, 180 rebounds and 68 or more three-pointers.
Senior forward Vanessa Markert is the only four-year letterwinner on the roster in 2018-19 and is one of the most experienced post players in the MVC. Bradley's active career scoring leader with 698 points, Markert average 9.5 points per contest last year and had a late season surge in which she averaged 15.0 points per outing on 53 percent shooting over the final eight contests.
Bradley will also look to senior guard Shunseere Kent for leadership after she ranked third on the team in scoring at 8.6 points per game to become Bradley's first junior college transfer to score at least 8.0 points per game since Rasheeda Love in 2002-03. Kent scored in double figures 13 times last year, including a season-best 22 points in the MVC Tournament quarterfinal matchup against Missouri State.
Five freshmen and St. Louis Community College transfer Ellisha Davis help round out a roster which features a total of nine underclassmen.
Bradley plays its only exhibition game of the 2018-19 season Saturday, Nov. 3 when the Braves host Quincy in a 2:30 p.m. contest at Renaissance Coliseum. The season opener is slated for Saturday, Nov. 10 against Southeast Missouri State (7 p.m.).
