HARTFORD, Conn. -- Seven women’s basketball student-athletes earned preseason all-conference recognition as voted on by the league’s nine head coaches and announced at the America East Basketball Tip-Off Event on Thursday, October 14 at the Connecticut State Capitol Building. All seven student-athletes are first-time recipients of this distinction.
The preseason all-conference team, which includes three from the preseason favorite Boston University Terriers, consists of two sophomores, three juniors and two seniors, a stark contrast to last year’s preseason team which was exclusively seniors.
Leading the group as unanimous selections are Binghamton University junior guard Andrea Holmes (Memphis, Tenn./Mitchell), Boston University sophomore guard Chantell Alford (West Haven, Conn./Wilbur Cross) and Stony Brook University senior forward Kirsten Jeter (Elmont, N.Y./Elmont). These three earned the maximum eight votes, as head coaches were not permitted to vote for their own players.
Joining this trio are Terrier guards Mo Moran (Hopewell Junction, N.Y./John Jay) and Alex Young (Hickory, N.C./St. Stephen’s), University of Hartford senior guard Jackie Smith (Westfield, Mass./Holyoke) and University of New Hampshire junior forward Denise Beliveau (Framingham, Mass./Framingham). Seven were named to the team rather than the traditional five due to a tie in the voting.
Holmes, a 5-6 guard, is one of three former America East Rookie of the Year recipients on this year’s preseason squad, having garnered the top rookie award in 2009. A second-team all-conference pick a year ago, Holmes led the Bearcats with 13.3 points and 4.7 assists per game in her sophomore campaign. She’s a work horse, playing over 37 minutes per game and making all 30 starts in 2009-10, who still gets back on defense as evidenced by the 47 steals she collected last season.
Alford is the lone 2010 first-team all-conference recipient returning in 2010-11 after a stellar freshman campaign. The 5-10 guard out of Connecticut was the 2010 Rookie of the Year after finishing third in the league with 14.9 points per game, including 16.6 points per game in America East play. Alford also compiled 5.0 rebounds, 2.77 assists, 2.47 steals and 0.93 blocks per game, and was fouth among all guards with a .402 field-goal percentage. She was a six-time Rookie of the Week honoree in 2010, and will be a key cog in Boston U.’s title dreams in 2011.
Alongside Alford in the Terriers’ backcourt is Moran, the primary ball distributor for Coach Kelly Greenberg’s team. Running the point as a rookie in 2010, Moran accumulated 4.26 assists per contest and had the second-best assist-to-turnover ratio in America East with a 1.45 mark. When she wasn’t busy dishing the ball off to teammates, she didn’t have a problem getting into the scoring as well, averaging 12.4 points per game as the third-highest scorer on the team as well as 12th in the league.
Young, a 5-9 junior, rounds out the trio of Terrier guards. She had a break out sophomore season with 14.5 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game. Because Young is a three-point threat, connecting on 58 of 169 attempts last year, she can light up the scoreboard quickly. She had one of only three 30+ point performances in the league last year. Along with Moran, Young was a third-team all-conference pick in 2010, and the Terriers hope her upward trend continues through into 2011.
Smith is the fifth guard on the preseason all-conference team. A 5-9 senior, she is what makes the perennial powerhouse Hartford Hawks run. On a Jen Rizzotti-coached team which typically goes deep into its bench on any given night, Smith averaged a team-high 29.1 minutes per game and handed out a team-best 3.2 assists per game. A third-team all-conference pick last year, Smith is Hartford’s top returning scorer after averaging 6.5 points per game over the 2009-10 season.
Beliveau is the third former Rookie of the Year recipient on this year’s team, winning the award in 2008. The 5-11 junior forward rebounded from an ACL injury to regain top form as a sophomore in 2009-10. In her first season back since 2008, Beliveau finished second on the team in both scoring (11.2 ppg) and rebounding (6.1 rpg), while leading the Wildcats with 44 steals. As a mobile forward who could see some time at a guard position, Beliveau could give opposing teams fits.
Jeter, a 5-10 senior forward, is the league’s active leading scorer with 1,081 points and can fill up the stat sheet in a hurry. Her 14.4 points per game ranked sixth in America East last season, while she ranked fourth in the conference with 8.2 rebounds and 2.25 steals per game. Jeter also finished last year second on the team with 57 assists. She was a second-team all-conference selection as a junior, leading Stony Brook to the America East Championship semifinals for the first time under Michele Cherry’s reign as head coach.
2010-11 Preseason All-Conference Team
*Andrea Holmes, Binghamton, Jr., G
*Chantell Alford, Boston U., So., G
Mo Moran, Boston U., So., G
Alex Young, Boston U., Jr., G
Jackie Smith, Hartford, Sr., G
Denise Beliveau, New Hampshire, Jr., F
*Kirsten Jeter, Stony Brook, Sr., F
*unanimous selection