LONGVIEW – Beginning where they finished.
That's the scenario these YellowJackets find themselves in as they prepare to embark on 2020-21 in the neighborhood they played their last game two weeks before world chaos broke.
LeTourneau University women's basketball team will open the season Tuesday against the University of North Texas at Dallas. Tipoff is set for 5 p.m. at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas.
The YellowJackets are coming off a 14-12 season that ended in the first round of the American Southwest Conference Championship Tournament in the Dallas area in late February. LETU won four of its last five regular season games to get over the .500 mark and produce the program's first winning season since 2015-16.
Now they will try to parlay that late-season push into the start of a new season defined by the certainty of the uncertainty.
Four of the top six scorers are back for the Jackets, who begin the season with 14 active players and more possibly to come during this semester break after the fallout of CoVID-19 still continues to be a factor. The list begins with All-ASC selection
Keauna Whitfield, who notched her 1,000th career point in the lone postseason game a year ago. She averaged 16.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game as a junior. Fellow senior guard
Scruffy Hopkins, who will finish the last of her two seasons at LETU, scored 6.5 points and grabbed 5.8 rebounds last season. Freshman
Malacia Guy, named to the ASC East All-Freshman Team, averaged six points, two assists and 1.6 steals per game. Senior forward
Flora Akingbade, an Honorable Mention All-ASC East selection, averaged 7.5 rebounds, 5.8 points and a block per game.
LETU added a pair of NCAA Division II transfers in
Briona Andrews and
Ajanae Thomas, the latter of whom began her career at Division I Indiana State. Andrews has one year of eligibility remaining after averaging roughly five points and two rebounds per game in her three seasons at Paine College. Thomas has two years remaining, and joined the team for her first practice as a YellowJacket Monday.
The Jackets will open the season at home 6:30 p.m. Dec. 3 against the same UNT Dallas squad.
