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No. 9/12 Women's Basketball preview: UTSA [Nov. 15, 2014]
11.14.2014 | Women's Basketball
Longhorns open the regular season on Saturday against UTSA.
Game 1: No. 9/12 TEXAS vs. UTSA
Date/Time: Saturday, Nov. 15 | 2 p.m. Central
Site: Austin, Texas | Frank Erwin Center (16,540)
TV: Longhorn Network (Fran Harris, Katie Smith)
Radio: KVET 103.1 FM or TexasSports.com (David Saltzman, Kathy Harston)
Live Stats: TexasSports.com
Tickets: TexasSports.com/tickets or 512-471-3333
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Notes at a Glance
• No. 9/12 Texas Women's Basketball opens the regular season against UTSA on Saturday at 2 p.m. Central at the Frank Erwin Center. The game will be televised nationally on Longhorn Network and broadcast on the Longhorn IMG Radio Network (KVET 1300).
• Series info: Texas leads the all-time series with UTSA 4-0, including a 3-0 mark in Austin. It is the second consecutive year the Longhorns have faced the Roadrunners to open the regular season.
• Season & home openers: UT is 30-10 (.750) in season openers and 36-4 (.900) in home openers. Under Karen Aston, Texas is 2-0 in both season and home openers. The Longhorns have opened the season at home in 10 of the last 11 seasons.
• 7th-Winningest NCAA program: Texas begins its 41st season of varsity Women's Basketball as the seventh-winningest program in NCAA Women's Basketball history with a 72.9 winning percentage (957-356 record). Its 957 wins through 40 seasons are the sixth-most in NCAA history.
• Recruiting class ranked No. 4: UT's incoming 2015-16 class of newcomers is being heralded as a consensus top-10 class, including a No. 4 ranking by ESPN.com. On Wednesday the Longhorns signed four-star forward Christina Aborowa (Ondo, Nigeria), five-star guard Lashann Higgs (Round Rock, Texas), and five-star forward Jordan Hosey (Pearland, Texas) to National Letters of Intent. All three are top-100 recruits, including two consensus top-10 signees -- Higgs and Hosey.
• Next up: Texas takes a west-coast trip to face Stanford (Thursday, Nov. 20) and UCLA (Sunday, Nov. 23) next week. Both games will be televised on Pac-12 Network.
• Big 12 favorites: The Longhorns were selected as the preseason favorite to win the 2014-15 Big 12 regular season title in a preseason vote of the league's head coaches. UT was also picked at the top of the preseason rankings in 2003-04 and 2004-05. Texas won the regular season in 2002-03 and shared the title in 2003-04 with Kansas State.
• Back in the rankings: Texas is ranked ninth in The Associated Press' Preseason Top 25. It marks UT's first return to the top 10 since Nov. 17, 2009. UT has the third-most all-time appearances in the AP Top 25, checking in for the 470th time this preseason. In the 38 seasons the AP has conducted polling for women's basketball, the Longhorns have been ranked 30 times in the AP Preseason Top 25 and 16 times in the AP Preseason Top 10. UT is ranked No. 12 in the USA TODAY Preseason Coaches' Poll.
• Ranked opponents: Texas will play 10 regular season games against seven preseason-ranked opponents -- No. 4/4 Tennessee, No. 5/5 Texas A&M, No. 6/6 Stanford, No. 8/9 Baylor, No. 17/17 West Virginia, No. 21/20 Oklahoma State, and No. 23/23 UCLA.
• Returning core: The Longhorns are returning 82 percent of their scoring and 82 percent of their minutes played from last season's squad that finished third in the Big 12 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Championship. Senior forward Nneka Enemkpali has led UT in total points the last two seasons and averaged a team-best 8.6 rebounds per game last season. Texas features 10 returning letterwinners, including four starters.
• Newcomers: Saturday will be the first regular season game for UT's freshman class, which features McDonald's High School All-Americans Ariel Atkins (Duncanville, Texas) and Brooke McCarty (League City, Texas), as well as all-state guard Tasia Foman (Duncanville, Texas) and two-time winner of The Denver Post's Ms. Colorado Basketball award, Diani Akigbogun (Aurora, Colo.). Karen Aston's 2014 recruiting class was ranked No. 11 by espnW HoopGurlz.
• Preseason All-Americans: Sporting News named a trio of Longhorns Preseason All-America, Third Team -- junior center Imani McGee-Stafford, senior forward Nneka Enemkpali, and freshman guard Ariel Atkins.
• Wimbish-North honored: Yulonda Wimbish-North was inducted into the UT Women's Hall of Honor on Nov. 7. Wimbish-North was the 1988 Southwest Conference Player of the Year, a member of the 1986 national championship team, and totaled 1,486 career points as a Longhorn.
