Wake Forest Women's Basketball season preview (exhibition tonight)

via www.dwhoops.com

A team that gets very little love from the Wake Forest fan base (and honestly most fan bases around the country sans UConn, Tennessee, Duke and UNC), is the Wake Forest women's basketball team.

This season I plan on keeping up with them on here, as well as attending many of their games. While I know that everybody may not be as keen on reading these articles as they are about football and men's basketball, the women's team has a shot to be pretty good this year.

Anyway, the season opens up tonight with an exhibition game against Lenoir-Rhyne at 6:30. I would encourage anybody that can make it out to do so (not just tonight, but the rest of the season as well). Coach Petersen's squad has worked tremendously hard in the offseason, and return four of five starters from a team that went 15-17 last year. That sets the Deacs up for a possibility at an NCAA Tournament run, which would be awesome for the ladies!

Click through the jump for a full schedule, roster and a look at the women's team this year.

2011-12 WAKE FOREST BASKETBALL SCHEDULE Overall 0-0 Conf. 0-0 Home 0-0 Away 0-0

Date	Opponent / Event	Location	Time / Result
11/02/11	vs. Lenoir-Rhyne (Exhibition)	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
11/07/11	vs. Tusculum (Exhibition)	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
11/15/11	vs. Monmouth	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
11/18/11	vs. Coppin State	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
11/20/11	vs. Kansas	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
11/23/11	vs. Mercer	Winston-Salem, N.C.	12:00 p.m. ET
11/25/11	vs. Jacksonville	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
12/01/11	vs. Minnesota	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
12/04/11	at Seton Hall	South Orange, N.J.	1:00 p.m. ET
12/07/11	vs. Radford	Winston-Salem, N.C.	12:00 p.m. ET
12/11/11	vs. Delaware	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
12/18/11	vs. Howard	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
12/21/11	at SMU	Dallas, Texas	8:00 p.m. ET
12/29/11	vs. Maryland Eastern Shore	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
12/31/11	vs. Davidson	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
01/06/12	vs. Duke	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
01/08/12	vs. Boston College	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
01/12/12	at Georgia Tech	Atlanta, Ga.	7:00 p.m. ET
01/16/12	vs. North Carolina State	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
01/19/12	at Maryland	College Park, Md.	7:00 p.m. ET
01/22/12	vs. Clemson	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
01/26/12	at Miami	Coral Gables, Fla.	7:00 p.m. ET
01/29/12	vs. North Carolina	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
02/02/12	at Duke	Durham, N.C.	7:00 p.m. ET
02/05/12	at Boston College	Chestnut Hill, Mass.	1:00 p.m. ET
02/09/12	vs. Florida State	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
02/12/12	at North Carolina State	Raleigh, N.C.	5:00 p.m. ET
02/16/12	vs. Georgia Tech	Winston-Salem, N.C.	6:30 p.m. ET
02/19/12	at Clemson	Clemson, S.C.	2:00 p.m. ET
02/24/12	at Virginia	Charlottesville, Va.	6:30 p.m. ET
02/26/12	vs. Virginia Tech	Winston-Salem, N.C.	2:00 p.m. ET

Coaches

Mike Petersen - Head Coach Natasha Adair - Associate Head Coach Rachel Stockdale - Assistant Coach Bob Clark - Assistant Coach Jason Eshbaugh - Dir. of Player Development/Scouting Greg Brittenham - Director of Athletic Performance, Basketball Kendra Eaton - Coordinator of Women's Basketball Operations

• The Deacs started out strong last year before they had to face the murderers row that is the ACC on any given night. They also strung together three wins towards the end of the year and almost got to the .500 record needed to make the NIT, before a loss to Duke in the ACC Tournament doomed them to the 15-17 record
• Wake will look to replace Brittany Waters, who graduated in the spring and led the Deacs in scoring and rebounding last year. They will do this with Sandra Garcia in the middle (11 and 5 last year), and three other returning starters from a year ago.
• Coach Mike Petersen welcomes three freshmen to the team this year: DeArica Hamby, Millesa Calicott, and Lauryn Webster. Hamby was ranked as the 93rd best player in the country by ESPN.com. With fairly balanced class sizes, the freshmen should get some time to play, but won't be thrown into the heat of battle too much.
• The Deacs welcome back graduate student Camille Collier, who got a medical red-shirt after a torn ACL last year. It will be great to have her expertise and basketball acumen on the court, as well as on the bench.
• 3-Point shooting has to go up from the 27.2% that it was last year, and hopefully Collier can help bring that average up to a respectable number .
• If the Deacs can get to 10 wins by the start of conference play, (10-3/11-2), that would set them up with the confidence necessary to get 7 wins in the conference. With that record (17-10), a win in the ACC Tournament could get them that coveted NCAA berth. There are a lot of home games early on because the Deacs aren't playing in a tournament away from home this winter, so that is a great opportunity for them to seize some wins. They need to avoid early season letdowns like the have had in the past though.