Women’s Basketball Hosts Quincy In Saturday Exhibition

Duane Zehr

Women's Basketball 11/2/2018 11:00:00 AM

PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Women's Basketball will play its only exhibition of the 2018-19 season Saturday, when the Braves host Great Lakes Valley Conference member Quincy in a 2:30 p.m. contest at Renaissance Coliseum.

Third-year Bradley head coach Andrea Gorski has led the Braves to an improved record in each of her first two seasons on The Hilltop. Bradley returns its top three scorers and top four rebounders from last year's team which was the first in program history to rank in the top three in the Missouri Valley Conference in both scoring offense and scoring defense in the same season.

While no video streaming will be available for Saturday's exhibition game, BradleyBraves.com will provide live stats for the contest.

Bradley is 7-3 in regular-season matchups against Quincy and owns a perfect 5-0 record in exhibition matchups (all since 2005-06) with the Hawks. Including exhibition contests, the Braves are a perfect 9-0 against the Hawks at home. Bradley posted a 90-80 exhibition victory over Quincy on Nov. 1, 2010 in the last meeting between the two schools.

Eighth-year Quincy head coach Jeni Garber is no stranger to Bradley. In fact, prior to taking over the head coaching job at Quincy for the 2011-12 season, Garber spent 11 seasons as an assistant coach with the Braves (2000-01 through 2010-11) with Bradley posting a 53-40 overall record and 30-24 MVC mark over her final three seasons on The Hilltop. Garber's father, Bob, played both basketball and baseball at Bradley and is a member of the BU Hall of Fame.

The Braves have won 23 consecutive exhibition games dating back to the team's trip to Western Europe in August 2004 after last year's 79-40 exhibition victory over Upper Iowa, pushing BU to a perfect 22-0 against collegiate teams in exhibition play.

Bradley made its on-court debut for 2018-19 in mid-October's Red-White scrimmage, where senior Shunseere Kent led the team in scoring with 12 points. Sophomore Nyjah White nearly posted a double-double in the 20-minute scrimmage, collecting 10 points and nine rebounds. Kent was Bradley's first junior college transfer to average at least 8.0 points per game since 2002-03, ranking third on the team in scoring at 8.6 points per contest in 2017-18.

Overall, the Braves return their top three scorers from the previous season for the first time since 2006-07. Sophomore guard Gabi Haack became just the third freshman to pace Bradley in scoring last season with a team-best 10.5 points per game. Haack and White combined to score 496 points last year for the fourth-best point total by a Bradley freshman combo and the duo's 310 rebounds in 2017-18 were the most by a freshman pairing.

Bradley has just two seniors on the roster and senior forward Vanessa Markert is the only three-time letterwinner on the 2018-19 roster. The team's active career scoring leader with 698 points, Markert was second in scoring last year at 9.5 points per outing. She had a late season surge in which she averaged 15.0 points on 53 percent shooting and also collected 6.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game over the final eight contests of 2017-18.

For season ticket information contact the Bradley Athletics Ticket office at (309) 677-2625 or email BradleyTicketOffice@bradley.edu

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