The UNK women’s basketball team begins a new season this week in Montana. However, the roster will look different after the Lopers graduated three of their starters and top contributors from last year’s squad, which went 20-9 and narrowly missed the national tournament.
This winter creates opportunities for both newcomers and players who’ve come off the bench in recent years.
“When you’re going to replace three people that had a big impact on the program, it’s always going to be a little bit hard,” said Jillian Aschoff, redshirt senior guard. “There’s like a learning curve at the beginning, but they set (a) good foundation for us culture-wise and set a standard for us.”
UNK led the MIAA conference last season in bench points per game at 26 1/2, a figure that coach Drew Johnson leans on entering his third season.
“We feel like we’re returning quite a bit of production from last year’s team,” Johnson said. “We had a team from last year that had a bunch of bench points.”
Two of the leaders on this year’s team are returning starters, Aschoff and junior forward Brinly Christensen. Both are players Johnson said will be beneficial to a new-look roster.
“They (Aschoff and Christensen) know what the standard is,” Johnson said. “They know how to play in the system. They’ve helped create kind of a seamless transition between last year’s team and this year’s team. Their experience is huge.”
Aschoff led the team last year in points, assists, rebounds and minutes played. The returning second-team All-MIAA guard said her role will depend on what the team needs from her each game.
“I always just think that I go into every practice and every game just doing,” Aschoff said. “I really only care about winning. So whatever that is, if that means I have to shoot 20 shots a night, so be it. I don’t love to shoot 20 shots a night, but if that’s what I have to do, that’s what I have to do.”
UNK also returns junior forwards Jordan Sears and Tara Biocanin. Biocanin is expected to have a bigger role alongside freshman Lynnae Green, with redshirt junior Bailee Sobczak still recovering from offseason surgery.
At the guard position, senior Saniya Simmons, who led the team with 50 steals last season, will be joined by Diller freshman Myleigh Weers and Missouri Western senior transfer Malgorzata Byczkowska.
The Lopers were selected fourth in both the coaches and media MIAA preseason polls, a conference that is expected to also have a different look to it this winter.
“There’s a lot of turnover,” Johnson said. “The league will look different. It will be as good as it always is. It will take kind of our best effort night in and night out to be successful. We believe we’ve got a team that has a chance to challenge at the top and give everybody our best shot every night and have a chance to win.”
The Lopers begin their season this weekend in Billings, Montana, competing in the D2CCA Tipoff Classic at the Trailhead with games against Colorado State-Pueblo, Colorado School of Mines and No. 20 Texas-Tyler.
