Preview: Women’s basketball prepares for 2019-2020 season
The Lady Flames basketball team dominated the Big South for nearly two decades before joining the ASUN last season. The expectations for the team were high. But the team struggled through an up-and-down season before finally losing in the ASUN conference title game against Florida Gulf Coast.
This season, the team is looking to fully settle into its new conference and pick up where it left off in the Big South.
“We’re coming back with a vengeance,” junior forward Bridgette Rettstatt said. “We want to start well, and we want to go after Florida Gulf Coast for sure.”
During Liberty’s inaugural season, they stumbled to a 6-10 record in nonconference play before turning around and finishing 10-6 in the ASUN.
“We went through a lot of experiences that were new,” Head Coach Carey Green said. “The new conference and travel – we had a lot of road games early on. We’re working on maturing and the things that will enable us to be more successful early.”
During the season, Liberty sorely missed the play of 2017 Big South Player of the Year forward Keyen Green. Keyen Green injured her ankle and was forced to redshirt her junior season, but with Keyen Green back on the court, Liberty will look to establish a dominant frontcourt presence, while ensuring it does not rush her back to a full workload too quickly.
“She brings a lot of confidence,” Coach Green said. “However, we want her playing her best game in the latter part of next year. It’s not that we don’t want her playing 100% in the first game, but we have to be realistic. We’re getting her timing and conditioning right to put her back out there. She really brings a physicality that we did not have last year.”
SHOOTING — Emily Lytle was selected to the preseason ASUN all-conference team.
“I’m just trying to continue what I started last year,” Retstatt said. “With Keyen in there, she’s going to open a lot of looks for me, and I’ll hopefully open up the lane for her.”
With that dynamic of returning players, the team is working to help integrate five new players into the team’s culture.
“We’re trying to nail down a team identity,” Coach Green said. “We’ve got a lot of energy from our younger players, and they want to be impactful, so they blend pretty well. The older players have been great mentors to them as well.”
After last year’s loss to FGCU in the conference title game, avenging that loss remains the ultimate goal, but that is not the only thing Liberty aims to do
this season.
With Liberty Arena expected to be completed before tipoff in 2020, this may be Liberty’s last season in the Vines Center, and Coach Green wants to end their time in the building successfully.
“We want to finish strong,” Carey Green said. “We’re looking forward to a new arena, but the Vines Center has been good to us, so we want to give it a good send-off.”
Liberty opens its season Nov. 5 at Norfolk State before hosting the first home game Nov. 8 against East Tennessee State University.