WICHITA, Kan. - Looking to get back on track, Wichita State opens play in the Cancun Challenge on Thursday, Nov. 24. The Shockers begin play vs. Purdue in the first of three games in three days followed by matchups with Stanford and Northeastern on Friday and Saturday.
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Quickly
-Wichita State (1-2) travels to Cancun, Mexico for the Cancun Challenge, WSU's second trip to the event in its history, for the three-game tournament.Â
-WSU faces Purdue (1-3) in the first game at 12:30 Central on Thursday. Purdue lost to Valley member SIU at home, 64-61, on Sunday. The Boilermakers are making their third trip to the Cancun Challenge in history and carry a 5-1 record in Cancun.
-The Shockers are coming off a 74-70 loss at UT Arlington that dropped WSU to below .500 at 1-2.Â
-WSU faces No. 11 Stanford (3-1) on Friday and Northeastern (2-2) on Saturday to round-out the event.
-After three games, the Shockers are led in scoring by junior
Rangie Bessard (17.7) and freshman
Kayla Williams (9.3). Bessard also leads WSU on the boards with 5.7 a game. She had 17, 20 and 16 points, respectively, in the first three games. Williams got her first career start at UTA.
Tournament Time... WSU plays its 66th in-season tournament in history when it travels to Cancun this week. Overall, WSU is 69-80 in the 65 in-season tournaments the Shockers have played since 1974-75. In 1981-82, the Shockers played in five in-season tournaments and went 6-6. Overall, WSU has won 11 in-season tournaments.
Freshman Follies... Freshman
Kayla Williams averaged 12.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists in WSU's two games last week. The forward shot 56.3 percent (9-16) from the field and 50 percent from the arc (5-10) in the two games. Her best outing was a career-high 17 points against UMKC on 6-11 shooting. She is averaging a team-second 9.3 points on 58.8 percent shooting, which includes a 6-of-11 effort from the arc.
Cancun is Challenging... WSU last played in the Cancun Challenge during the 2012-13 season where it went 0-3, but went on to a 24-10 overall record and its first of three Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles and made its first of three-straight NCAA Tournaments. It gets no easier this time as the Shockers play Purdue, Stanford, and Northwestern.
Adams-Birch in Non-Con Tourneys...Coach Jody Adams-Birch is 16-9 in in-season tournaments since coming to WSU, and has won four in-season tournament titles, including three of the last four the Shockers have competed.
On the Series vs. Purdue... WSU is 0-2 against Purdue with the last meeting a 83-75 loss at Purdue on Dec. 10, 1992, under Linda Hargrove. The first meeting was on Dec. 18, 1990, in Wichita, a 84-51 loss in Linda Hargrove's second season. Former Purdue coach Lin Dunn and Hargrove were assistants on the 1990 U.S. Olympic Team that went 8-0 and won Olympic Gold.
Series vs. Stanford... WSU is 1-0 against Stanford with the meeting a 78-61 win at the Roadrunner Classic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Dec. 4, 1980. Kathryn Bunnell was in her third of five seasons as the head coach at WSU. The Shockers went on to a 20-11 record.
Series vs. Northeastern... The Shockers are 1-0 against Northeastern. The two teams met on Dec. 7, 1997, in Tucson, Ariz., at the Insight Classic where the Shockers won, 66-49.
Missing Games...
TaQuandra Mike and
Jyar Francis did not play in either exhibition due to injury. Mike has played in all three regular-season games while Francis currently nursing injury. Senior
Jaleesa Chapel is out for the season with a knee injury suffered in practice prior to the season.
-WSU is in its 43rd modern season of women's basketball that started in 1974-75. WSU is 557-631 in the 43 years.
-The Shockers return all five starters from last year's squad, and 11 players overall. With five newcomers, the Shockers carry 16 players on the roster.
-Senior guard
Jaleesa Chapel returns with the most experience, having played in 93 games with 31 starts the last three years, but a knee injury has ended her season.
-WSU welcomed five newcomers to the Shocker program, including four junior college transfers and one freshman.Â
-The Shockers were picked fifth in the MVC Preseason vote of coaches, SIDs, Radio play-by-play and beat writers for the second-straight year. The two fifth-place picks are the Shockers' lowest position in the preseason poll since 2010-11 when the Shockers were also picked fifth. WSU has only been the favorite once, in 2014-15, in the 33 years of the poll. The Shockers were chosen second in 2012-13 and 2013-14 and came away with the title at the end of loop play.
Fall Signee
Wichita State women's basketball signed student-athlete Lauren Brocke to a National Letter of Intent, head coach Jody Adams-Birch announced Nov. 10.
Brocke, a 6-foot-2 wing from Boise, Idaho, is ranked 19th at her position by ESPN and is labeled a three-star recruit. She helped Centennial High School to a 21-4 record a year ago and a state runner-up finish.
As a junior, she averaged 8.8 points and 5.0 rebounds a game and shot 52 percent from the field.
Newcomers Add Plenty of Experience
Led by the Juco All-American Tompkins, the bevy of newcomers start their WSU careers with backgrounds as proven winners: Thompson helped Shelton State CC to a 63-5 record in two seasons. Preston helped Blinn CC to a 26-9 record and a NJCAA Regional title. Lee was a first-team All-Jayhawk Conference first-team honoree and helped Edmond Santa Fe to a 108-4 record as a prepster. Williams comes to WSU from Overton High in Memphis, Tenn., where she helped her team to a 102-16 high school record.
Adams-Birch
Adams-Birch (Tennessee, '94) is in her ninth season at Wichita State as the only Shocker women's basketball coach to make an NCAA appearance and win an MVC regular-season and MVC Tournament championship at WSU. Her 2012-13 team accomplished all of that, then the 2013-14 and 2014-15 teams repeated the exact same feat. Â Â Â
WSU won three-straight MVC regular-season and MVC Tournament titles while making three-straight NCAA Tournaments.Â
She is 156-107 in eight seasons at WSU and 171-113 overall in nine seasons as a head coach, which includes a 24-8 record as head coach at Murray State in 2007-08.
The 2014-15 team broke the school's season win record by three games at 29-5.
In addition, WSU is 89-24 (.785) overall at home under Adams, including 16-0 in 2014-15.
Adams is first on the WSU all-time wins list. She passed Linda Hargrove, who won 113 games at WSU from 1989-98, on Fri., Feb. 21, 2014 in a win against Illinois State.
On the Web
Wichita State's home games this season will be broadcast on the internet at
www.goshockers.com/listen with Steve Strain, who is in his third season calling the action for the Shockers. Steve, who is a veteran of radio and television, called women's basketball for the Texas Tech Lady Raiders from 2009-13. Strain will also call road games on KNSS 1330.
Shocker Honors
Wichita State's returnees earned honors in 2015-16, led by Bessard, who was named to the 2016 MVC Honorable Mention Team and Newcomer of the Year after earning three Newcomer of the Week Honors during the regular season.
In addition, Bessard and Lockhart were named to the MVC Scholar-Athlete Second Team.
Earlier this year Lockhart was also honored with the Valley's State Farm Good Neighbor Award. Â
Other honors in 2015-16 included:
-Mike, Francis and Lockhart as MVC Newcomers of the week once each.
-Mike and Bessard were named to the Winter Classic All-Tournament Team and Mike was named to the FIU Turkey Slam All-Tournament Team.    Â
Shockers Picked Fifth in Valley
Wichita State's women's basketball team was picked fifth in the 2016-17 Missouri Valley Conference Preseason Poll, and Bessard was named to the Preseason Team, it was announced Oct. 25.
Wichita State is the only league team to return all five starters to the floor this season after finishing the 2015-16 campaign 8-22 overall and 5-13 in MVC action. The Shockers did not have a senior on last year's team and will look to ride that experience back up the league standings this winter after winning three-straight titles in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Bessard earned honorable mention all-MVC honors in 2015-16, and was also named the conference's 2016 Newcomer of the Year.
Bessard led the Shockers during the season, averaging 15.5 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game. Mike also averaged double figures for Wichita State a year ago, averaging 12.5 points and 4.6 rebounds per outing. Lockhart (7.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, 2.6 assists), senior guard Chapel (4.5 points, 3.5 rebounds) and junior guard
Aundra Stovall (4.2 points) also return to the backcourt for the Shockers after starting in the majority of the contests a year ago.
Drake has been tabbed as the preseason favorite in the MVC's women's basketball race in the annual survey of the league's coaches, sports information directors and media.
MVC Women's Basketball Preseason Poll
| School (First-Place Votes) |
Total |
| 1. Drake (34) |
392 |
| 2. UNI (4) |
317 |
| 3. Missouri State (2) |
313 |
| 4. SIUÂ |
306 |
| 5. Wichita State |
248 |
| 6. Indiana State |
199 |
| 7. Bradley |
141 |
| 8. Illinois State |
123 |
| 9. Evansville |
109 |
| 10. Loyola |
52 Â Â Â |
2015-16 MVC Preseason Team
Rangie Bessard, WSU
Caitlin Ingle, Drake
Rishonda Napier, SIU
Madison Weekly, UNI
Lizzy Wendell, Drake (Pre-Season POY)
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