LCU women's basketball returns experienced cast from 24-win team

The Lubbock Christian University women's basketball team successfully navigated a transition year last season, going 24-11 and reaching the third round of the Division II NCAA Tournament.

That was with no returning starters from the year before, when the Lady Chaps went 28-7.

LCU opens the season at home this weekend, and experience is once again a team strength with the Lady Chaps returning four full-time starters and one part-time starter.

"To have five starters back after having zero starters back (last year), it allows you to start a little more advanced than last year with what all we have done so far," LCU coach Steve Gomez said this week. "Still, every year, whatever you think might happen never really happens. It's always an adventure.

"I love the group — just a very quality group of people and close team. We just have to compete at a high level consistently."

Both LCU squads are hosting the D2CCA Tipoff Classic Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Rip Griffin Center with six women's and six men's teams. The Lady Chaps face Union (Tenn.) at 5 p.m. Friday and Adams State at 5 p.m. Sunday, and the LCU men take on perennial Tennessee power and sixth-ranked Lincoln Memorial at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Northern Michigan at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

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Coaches, sports information directors and media picked the Lady Chaps fourth in the 16-team Lone Star Conference behind Angelo State (26-7 last season), Texas Woman's (26-6) and UT Tyler (27-8).

LCU forward Grace Foster is the returning conference and region player of the year and received all-America recognition from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and the Division II Conference Commissioners Association. The 6-foot-1 junior from Childress averaged 16.4 points, third in the conference, and 8.9 rebounds, second in the conference.

Foster started all 35 games last season. So did guards 5-7 Frenship graduate Maci Maddox (10.9 ppg, 4.2 assists per game), 5-8 Kerrville Tivy grad Audrey Robertson (10.4 ppg, 4.7 rpg) and 5-6 Idalou grad Shaylee Stovall (7.3 ppg), all guards going into their senior seasons.

"Those four really do a lot of the team leadership on and off the court," Gomez said.

Sophomore forward Martie McCoy (3.4 ppg, 2.4 rpg) made 18 starts last season, and the Lady Chaps also return junior center Reese Schumann (4.8 ppg, 4.7 rpg), who averaged about 16 minutes per game off the bench.

LCU went into the Division II NCAA Tournament last season as the No. 7 seed in the South Central Region bracket. The Lady Chaps knocked off Texas Woman's and Black Hills State before UT Tyler edged LCU 67-64 to advance to the Elite Eight.

"Hoping we'll come back with some hunger," Gomez said. "(We) finished well last year. We hope to start out and not have to reclimb those same steps again."

The Lady Chaps will be tested in the season opener by a familiar program. Union is located in Jackson, Tennessee, which hosted the NAIA Tournament from 1990 through 2011 and beat LCU in the championship game in 2006. Now Mark Campbell is in his 25th season coaching Union and Gomez is in his 21st at LCU.

Union went 27-4 last season and has failed to win 25 games only three times in Campbell's 24 seasons.

"A great program there, and their coach is a good friend," Gomez said. "That's an Elite Eight-level team, a consistent top-rated team, and so to get to start out (against them), it'll be helpful. It doesn't mean everything. It won't dictate the rest of the season, but it's like, 'Hey, we've got to start off ready to go.' "

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: LCU women's basketball returns experienced cast from 24-win team