OPENING STATEMENT
Thank you for coming this morning. I appreciate having you here. The weather has turned. It's time to start talking about women's basketball. Our men are opening up tonight, so I think it's time. But as you all know, we lost three starters from last year's team that advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, was ranked No. 11 in the country, and, yes, they were the all-time leading trio in Big Ten history. But I can assure you it's not all doom and gloom around our program.
We have great optimism in the gym, and we have a group of women that are kind of excited about proving everybody wrong. And I also think that's one of the joys of athletics is when people count you out and you really go out and prove everybody wrong.
Even though the faces have changed in our program, the culture remains the same. We have the same group of women that want to come out and achieve, work hard every single day in practice, achieve academically, and be tremendous role models. They represent our program in a first-class manner. So that has not changed. Even though the faces have, those women have the same goals and the same values that we've had for the last many years.
The anchors are probably the usual suspects, what you would expect. Ally Disterhoft is definitely going to be in a different role for us this year. She was our leading scorer on our team last year, she's had two terrific seasons in an Iowa uniform. She's been named to the All-Big Ten preseason poll, which is a great honor, and it shows you the respect that everyone around our league has for her.
I also want to mention again, I don't think this got enough play last year that she was an academic All-American. The only sophomore in America named as an Academic All-American. Again, we were the only school in America that had two Academic All-Americans on our team with Sam and Ally. I just think that is tremendous.
Whitney Jennings is another starter that returns for us. You all saw what she was capable of doing in a Game Time League this summer where she was named MVP of the league, but also Whitney will be moving back to her more comfortable point guard position. She could play some off guard at times, like she did last year, but will primarily be back in that point guard.
She has so much speed. She is one of the quickest ball handlers I've ever coached, and that's tough to defend. Kali Peschel, senior co-captain on our basketball team, also is going to have to have a different role for us this year, and she's playing very well. She is going to be asked to be more of a leader for our basketball team, and to be more of a scorer for our basketball team.
Last year she was the second best three-point shooter on our basketball team. She shot nearly 45% from three-point range, and then that got overshadowed because of Melissa Dixon's excellence at that position. She's really, I thought last year at the end of the year was playing her best basketball of her career, and I feel like she's just taken off from that spot right now.
Chase Coley's going to battle for that starting center position, along with Megan Gustafson, one of our freshmen. Chase should come back as a more confident player this year, having a year of experience, but also I need to continue to remind her she was our leading field goal percentage shooter on our team last year. Chase shot 65% from the field last year, but this year obviously we're going to need her to score a few more baskets than she did last year.
Alexa Kastanek is also playing extremely well right now. She's made a big jump from sophomore to junior season. And I also think Christina Buttenham is playing very well for us, though she did miss again her second summer in a row of development with a stress fracture this summer, but she's now 100 percent healthy and hasn't missed a practice.
Claire Till and Carly Mohns are doing a great job for us on the boards, and I think we're going to be a better rebounding team because of the efforts of those two women. And we are obviously welcoming four freshmen. The four freshmen were the 17th best recruiting class in America last year. Tania Davis led that group. She was considered the 36th best player in America, and the 12th best point guard. She was also named Miss Michigan Basketball. A very coveted honor up there, and the first Miss Michigan that we have had as a coaching staff. She is going to definitely be on the court quite a bit for us this year.
Megan Gustafson, she ended her high school career as the all-time leading scorer in Wisconsin history. She scored over 2,000 points in her high school career. She's a 6'3" left-handed post player and gives us a different look than Chase because she likes to be down in the block and she likes to have that physical contact. So she is going to play significantly as a freshman as well.
Hannah Stewart was named Miss North Dakota Basketball, and Tagyn Larson also a top player in the country coming out of South Dakota will play the wing position for us. So all of our freshman class will be counted on.
Our schedule, again, the in-state rivalries, of those three we'll only be hosting one of them this year in Drake. We'll be traveling to UNI. We'll be traveling to Iowa State. We'll be traveling to Virginia in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, and then we'll also be playing George Washington, the Pac-12 defending champion on a neutral court over Thanksgiving in a tournament in Austin.
Thank you for coming this morning. I appreciate having you here. The weather has turned. It's time to start talking about women's basketball. Our men are opening up tonight, so I think it's time. But as you all know, we lost three starters from last year's team that advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, was ranked No. 11 in the country, and, yes, they were the all-time leading trio in Big Ten history. But I can assure you it's not all doom and gloom around our program.
We have great optimism in the gym, and we have a group of women that are kind of excited about proving everybody wrong. And I also think that's one of the joys of athletics is when people count you out and you really go out and prove everybody wrong.
Even though the faces have changed in our program, the culture remains the same. We have the same group of women that want to come out and achieve, work hard every single day in practice, achieve academically, and be tremendous role models. They represent our program in a first-class manner. So that has not changed. Even though the faces have, those women have the same goals and the same values that we've had for the last many years.
The anchors are probably the usual suspects, what you would expect. Ally Disterhoft is definitely going to be in a different role for us this year. She was our leading scorer on our team last year, she's had two terrific seasons in an Iowa uniform. She's been named to the All-Big Ten preseason poll, which is a great honor, and it shows you the respect that everyone around our league has for her.
I also want to mention again, I don't think this got enough play last year that she was an academic All-American. The only sophomore in America named as an Academic All-American. Again, we were the only school in America that had two Academic All-Americans on our team with Sam and Ally. I just think that is tremendous.
Whitney Jennings is another starter that returns for us. You all saw what she was capable of doing in a Game Time League this summer where she was named MVP of the league, but also Whitney will be moving back to her more comfortable point guard position. She could play some off guard at times, like she did last year, but will primarily be back in that point guard.
She has so much speed. She is one of the quickest ball handlers I've ever coached, and that's tough to defend. Kali Peschel, senior co-captain on our basketball team, also is going to have to have a different role for us this year, and she's playing very well. She is going to be asked to be more of a leader for our basketball team, and to be more of a scorer for our basketball team.
Last year she was the second best three-point shooter on our basketball team. She shot nearly 45% from three-point range, and then that got overshadowed because of Melissa Dixon's excellence at that position. She's really, I thought last year at the end of the year was playing her best basketball of her career, and I feel like she's just taken off from that spot right now.
Chase Coley's going to battle for that starting center position, along with Megan Gustafson, one of our freshmen. Chase should come back as a more confident player this year, having a year of experience, but also I need to continue to remind her she was our leading field goal percentage shooter on our team last year. Chase shot 65% from the field last year, but this year obviously we're going to need her to score a few more baskets than she did last year.
Alexa Kastanek is also playing extremely well right now. She's made a big jump from sophomore to junior season. And I also think Christina Buttenham is playing very well for us, though she did miss again her second summer in a row of development with a stress fracture this summer, but she's now 100 percent healthy and hasn't missed a practice.
Claire Till and Carly Mohns are doing a great job for us on the boards, and I think we're going to be a better rebounding team because of the efforts of those two women. And we are obviously welcoming four freshmen. The four freshmen were the 17th best recruiting class in America last year. Tania Davis led that group. She was considered the 36th best player in America, and the 12th best point guard. She was also named Miss Michigan Basketball. A very coveted honor up there, and the first Miss Michigan that we have had as a coaching staff. She is going to definitely be on the court quite a bit for us this year.
Megan Gustafson, she ended her high school career as the all-time leading scorer in Wisconsin history. She scored over 2,000 points in her high school career. She's a 6'3" left-handed post player and gives us a different look than Chase because she likes to be down in the block and she likes to have that physical contact. So she is going to play significantly as a freshman as well.
Hannah Stewart was named Miss North Dakota Basketball, and Tagyn Larson also a top player in the country coming out of South Dakota will play the wing position for us. So all of our freshman class will be counted on.
Our schedule, again, the in-state rivalries, of those three we'll only be hosting one of them this year in Drake. We'll be traveling to UNI. We'll be traveling to Iowa State. We'll be traveling to Virginia in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, and then we'll also be playing George Washington, the Pac-12 defending champion on a neutral court over Thanksgiving in a tournament in Austin.
