Nine Teams, Nine Days – Over the next nine days we’ll take a look at each of the America East’s nine women’s basketball programs in a lead up to the 2023-24 season. The regular season begins on Monday, Nov. 6 with eight teams in action and the full schedule of contests can be found here.
Denise King enters her third season in charge of the UMass Lowell women’s basketball program and is looking ahead after a rocky 2022-23 campaign. The River Hawks lost a number of key players to injury, and combined with an extremely ambitious non-conference schedule the team struggled. UMass Lowell did play its best basketball over the last two weeks of the regular season, with three straight victories to clinch the No. 7 seed in the conference tournament. The River Hawks then led No. 2 seed UAlbany into the third quarter, before the Great Danes came back to earn the win.
The ending of last season, combined with a new approach from King and her staff this season has her excited about the prospect of what her team can do this season.
“The team has done a really good job of meeting people and connecting with a lot of different folks on campus,” said King. “They’ve also been coming into practice every day just ready to work and ready to learn, so that’s been pretty exciting for us as a staff.”
Milli Carrera is the team’s top returning scorer and looks to build off her strong finish to last season. The graduate student transfer averaged 6.9 points and 2.0 rebounds per game in conference play and reached double figures three times in the final five games of the year. King expects seniors Sydney Coombs, Leilani Rodriguez and Baylee Teal to contribute after the three combined to play in just 11 games last season due to injury.
King will look to work five freshmen into the fold, along with sophomore transfer Sophie Baydanov, junior transfer Sydney Watkins and junior Alex Gitchenko.
This season the team opens the year at Boston University on Nov. 6. They play just one home game over the first five weeks of the season, against Le Moyne on Nov. 18, while facing off against tough in state programs like Holy Cross, Boston College and UMass. They conclude 2023 with three home games and begin conference play at home on Jan. 4 against Maine at 6 p.m.
UMass Lowell – Roster - Schedule
Head Coach: Denise King
2022-23 Record: 5-22, 4-12 (7th)
Postseason: America East First Round
Scoring Offense: 53.3 points per game (9th)
Scoring Defense: 64.4 points per game (8th)
Free Throw %: 74.2% (1st)
Returning Starters (2)
Baylee Teal – 4.4 ppg, 1.6 rpg in 2021-22
Mli Carrera - 6.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg
Notable Newcomers (8)
Sophie Baydanov, G - transfer from Morehead State
Sydney Watkins, G – transfer from Miami (OH)
Alex Gitchenko, F – transfer from Georgia State
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