DURHAM, N.C. — The North Carolina Central University women's basketball team will start its 2021-22 season with an eight-game road swing, beginning with a trip to Big Ten Conference foe University of Illinois on Tuesday, Nov. 9, at noon (11 p.m. CST).
GAME INFO:
GAME NOTES 01 at Illinois
DATE: Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 12 p.m. (11 a.m. CST)
LOCATION: State Farm Center, Champaign, Ill.,
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NC CENTRAL BENCH:
The Eagles are coming off a shortened 4-12 season in 2020-21. NCCU won 13 games in its last full season in 2019-20 and is picked fourth out of eight teams in the MEAC Predicted Order of Finish preseason poll.
Senior guard
Necole Hope returns for her fifth collegiate season and second with the Eagles. Hope, who is NCCU's top returning scorer at 10.1 points per game, was named Preseason All-MEAC Third Team. Hope led the league with a .826 free throw shooting percentage last year and she nearly averaged two steals per game.
NCCU returns seven letter winners and has eight newcomers, who are split evenly between four freshmen and four transfers.
Sophomore
Paris McBride made nine starts and played in a dozen games as a rookie last season. She tops NCCU's returnees with averages of 3.7 assists and 4.1 rebounds per game. McBride also bucketed an average of 6.2 points per game.
Senior forward
Ashlyn Lockard has started 48 games over her first three seasons with the maroon and gray and will be in the mix to start games again this season.
All four of NCCU's transfers are from fellow DI programs, including senior center
Breonna Mayfield (Georgetown), redshirt junior
Kira Lowery (Auburn), redshirt sophomore forward
Tianna Carter (UNLV) and redshirt sophomore wing
Taylor Williams (College of Charleston). NCCU's four rookies will also be contending for court time immediately.
ILLINOIS BENCH:
The Fighting Illini went 5-18 last season, including a much-better 4-7 mark at home. Illinois had a 2-16 ledger in the Big Ten.
Junior guard Jada Peebles, who is from Raleigh, North Carolina, was the leading scorer for the Fighting Illini last season with 11.6 points per game. Peebles made a team-best 34 three-pointers while pacing the squad with a .789 free-throw percentage. Sophomore guard Aaliyah Nye follows Peebles with an average of 8.1 points per game.
In the paint, redshirt senior center Eva Rubin started 20 games last season and averaged 7.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and nearly one block per game.
Illinois added six new players to its roster, including graduate transfer guard Sara Anastasieska, who has already played one game against the Eagles. Anastasieska averaged 10 points per game in four games at Duke last season and, prior to that, tallied 15 points and eight assists for Cal in win against NCCU two seasons ago.
A couple other noteworthy transfers to Illinois include Kendall Bostic, who averaged 4.2 points per game at Michigan State last year, and juco All-America honoree junior guard De'Myla Brown, who averaged over 20 points per game last season. The Fighting Illini have three freshmen on the team.
SERIES:
NC Central will be playing Illinois for the first time in its program history.
