2019–20 Evansville Women’s Basketball Preview
Now entering his fourth season as head coach of the Evansville women’s basketball team, Matt Ruffing knows his team needs a spark.
Ruffing has already kickstarted one turnaround in his tenure in Evansville. With a roster that included four graduate transfers, the team won 14 games in 2016–17, just one year after winning only three.
That 2016–17 season, Ruffing’s first as head coach of the Purple Aces, seemed like the blueprint for the beginnings of a major turnaround, but the momentum did not carry over into 2017–18 as they won just three games.
The Purple Aces are hoping 2019–20 is the first step in a sustained turnaround. Like in 2016–17, there will be four transfers on the roster, including three from the junior college ranks.
One major improvement the Purple Aces need to make is their three-point shooting. Evansville’s 28.6 percent from beyond the arc in conference games was the lowest in the MVC last season. This is problematic in a conference where the best teams force very high rates of three-pointers, including three teams (Drake, Illinois State, and Missouri State) that forced opponents to shoot at least one-third of their shot attempts from beyond the arc. To try to take advantage of that, Ruffing recruited a pair of the NJCAA’s top three-point shooters from last season.
The first three-point specialist transferring in for the Purple Aces is Alexis Thomas, a junior guard from Wabash Valley College. The 5-foot-9 guard returns to her hometown of Evansville after a very strong sophomore season at Wabash Valley in which she totaled 100 made three-pointers on 46.7 percent shooting. Thomas led the Warriors to a 32–1 record in 2018–19, including the №1 overall seed in the NJCAA Division I Tournament. She averaged 11.4 points per game and earned All-America honors.
The other is Felicia Boström, a Stockholm, Sweden native who finished second in the NJCAA in three-point shooting percentage at 50 percent (60-of-120) while at Broward College in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Boström averaged 11.4 points per game, earned second-team all-conference honors, and led Broward to a 22–8 record.
Also transferring from Broward, junior forward Alva Söderberg should bring a strong defensive presence to the Purple Aces. Evansville finished in the bottom half of the league in rebounding margin and blocked shots last season, and Söderberg excelled in those areas at Broward. As a sophomore, the Stockholm, Sweden native ranked in the top 30 in the NJCAA in blocks per game (1.9) and the top 100 in rebounds per game (6.5) and received NJCAA All-America honors.
The fourth transfer for Ruffing is Jada Poland, a junior forward who played in 50 games in two seasons with North Texas. Poland averaged just 12.4 minutes per game in her sophomore season but showed promise as a rebounder, finishing in the top 10 percent of all players in defensive rebounding rate.
In addition to the four offseason transfers, Ruffing’s team also added two midseason transfers who will be available this season. Lola Bracy, who rejoins former Kirkwood High School (Mo.) teammate Makayla Wallace at Evansville, transferred from Lamar University, where she averaged 3.6 points per game in 24 games. NaTaya Partee transferred to the Purple Aces after spending one season at Johnson County Community College, where she averaged just under two rebounds per game.
The team also welcomes two incoming freshmen with dynamic skill sets. Jossie Hudson is a 6-foot-1 forward who averaged 12.9 points and 5.2 rebounds per game as a senior at Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Ind. Abby Feit, a 6-foot-1 guard/forward from Normal, Ill., averaged 14.1 points and 7.5 points per game and recorded seven double-doubles as a senior at Normal Community High School.
The Purple Aces will open their regular season with a home game against Brescia University (Ky.) at the Ford Center on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 11 a.m. and their conference season on the road against Bradley on Jan. 3.
