HCU Huskies (0-0) at Rice Owls (0-0)
Monday, Nov. 6 – 7 p.m.
Tudor Fieldhouse - Houston, Texas
TV (ESPN+)
Live Stats
Game Notes
HOUSTON – The 2023-24 campaign tips off this coming Monday for the HCU women's basketball team with a visit across town to Tudor Fieldhouse to take on the Rice Owls at 7:00 p.m.
HCU (0-0), in year 11 under head coach
Donna Finnie, are coming off an 11-18 season a year ago with six new faces on the roster. Finnie is the second-longest tenured head coach in the Southland Conference, right behind Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's Royce Chadwick.
The Huskies are led by a pair of fifth-year seniors,
N'Denasija Collins and
Kennedy Wilson. Collins and Wilson have combined to play in 199 games for the Huskies with 142 starts between them. Collins was a preseason second team all-conference selection after earning second team all-SLC honors last season. Collins is sixth all-time in program history with 660 rebounds and her 1,044 career points ranks 11
th. Wilson, meanwhile, is third all-time with an 80.2 percent career free throw mark and her 222 career assists are 10
th-most in program history.
Junior guard
Enya Maguire and junior center
Elizabeth Matadi both figure to play more prominent roles this season, along with junior forward
Amy Cotton. Maguire appeared in all 29 games with five starts last season, averaging 5.6 points per game in 17.7 minutes per game. Matadi played 7.3 mpg across 13 appearances with two senior posts getting the majority of minutes in the paint last season. Cotton served in a reserve role last season, as well, averaging 8.7 minutes in 24 games played.
Jo Oly, a sophomore, also returns looking to build on a freshman year in which she shot 38.9 percent (14-of-36) from three while starting four games and appearing in 23.
Erin Maguire also returns as a redshirt freshman after appearing in three games last season.
Finnie's roster includes six newcomers with one transfer and five freshmen. 6-5 sophomore center
Yasmin Butler comes to HCU after a year at Williston State College where she averaged 7.8 points and 2.9 rebounds per game in just 13.9 minutes per game while leading the team with 25 blocked shots.
Makolla Bagayegou and
Tove Caesar, both guards, hail from Sweden and join local product
Lyric Barr, a guard who played at Katy High School.
Hannah Fields comes to HCU from Norman, Okla. Where she starred at Norman North High School and
Riley Wells is a 6-2 forward from Kinds High School in Montgomery, Ohio.
Rice (0-0) finished last season with a 23-9 record and reached the second round of the WNIT. The Owls, in their first season in the American Athletic Conference, were picked third in the league's preseason poll. Junior forward Malia Fisher was a second team preseason all-AAC selection after averaging 11.8 ppg and 6.3 rpg last year as a sophomore.
The Owls defeated Angelo State in an exhibition, 101-47, on Wednesday, Nov. 1. Junior guard Emily Klaczek led Rice with 26 points on 8-of-12 shooting, including 6-of-8 from behind the arc. Junior center Sussy Ngulefac added 12 points off the bench.
HCU's next game following Monday's contest will be Saturday, Nov. 11, in Huntsville, Texas against former Southland Conference rival Sam Houston at 6:00 p.m.
